


With Feeling

by mak5258



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Crimes & Criminals, Drug Use, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Family, Friends With Benefits, Miscarriage, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 07:42:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 91,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28541991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mak5258/pseuds/mak5258
Summary: He’d been the one to warn off feelings, to make sure she wasn’t expecting anything from him emotionally. She’d been fine with that until he’d gone and gotten emotional.A plot-bunny that wouldn’t die, Molly’s POV following the series with the twist that she and Sherlock had a friends with benefits arrangement since before John entered the picture.
Relationships: Molly Hooper & Greg Lestrade, Mycroft Holmes & Molly Hooper, Mycroft Holmes & Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper
Comments: 61
Kudos: 167





	1. the opposite of a “meet-cute”

**Author's Note:**

> I was furloughed for a chunk of time this summer and ended up re-watching Sherlock, which led to a dive into Sherlock fanfiction, which led to this. It's a long one, but it's mostly written; I'll post as often as I can.

Molly wasn’t even supposed to be on shift. Dr. Nakagaki had asked nicely—and it had been Dr. Nakagaki that had had all the right connections for her to get on that coveted specialty track at Bart’s, starting next week already—and so Molly had agreed to come in. Of course she had.

Dr. Nakagaki had supervised her last clinical rotation, and that had included shifts at A&E, which was where Dr. Nakagaki had asked her to help.

Dr. Nakagaki, it turned out, was a sort of spotter for MI-5. She kept an eye out for potential recruits, made sure they crossed paths with the right people.

An hour after Molly had arrived at A&E, Dr. Nakagaki and a pair of men in sharp suits—the jackets tailored too well for the extra bit of fabric to be a mistake; they were definitely armed—intercepted her in the hall off the main ward. The men showed government ID badges, and Dr. Nakagaki smiled in that encouraging teacher sort of way she had, and Molly was whisked away.

The government man who seemed to be in charge had her sign an NDA and told her she was highly recommended.

They showed their badges to a security guard dressed like every other security guard at the hospital, and he scanned her hospital ID with a handheld device that seemed to have beeped in a good way because he nodded when it did. The government man handed off the form she’d signed to the security guard, and they went through the double doors into a ward she’d never been to before.

Their final destination was a large single room. There was just one patient, a thin, dark-haired man laying semi-conscious on the bed, hooked up to monitors and a saline IV. The monitors, and the patient’s constant moaning, blared distress.

There was a guard standing just inside the door who put out a hand to stop her, looked from her ID to her face, scanned the ID again (beeped the same way), then dropped his arm and stood by the door, watching the two nurses monitoring the patient.

There was a tall man all in black standing near the head of the bed talking to the doctor. Molly recognized the doctor—Jennings, a squat older man who always looked a bit like he missed the days when he could chew on a cigar while he saw patients. She hadn’t had much interaction with him, which made more sense if he was some sort of spook doctor; that would make it tricky for him to be supervising medical students.

“What, did they send the youngest one available?” the tall man asked, sneering. “Are you lost? Did you wander off from your school release internship?”

Molly ignored him, turning to Dr. Jennings instead. She’d learned to ignore that sort of reaction very early in her foundation training. She was young—she’d taken her A-levels a year early, so she’d been a bit ahead on the rest of it as well—and she was petite, so she looked even younger than she actually was.

“Dr. Jennings,” Molly said, holding out her hand. Jennings shook it, looking her over shrewdly. “I’m Dr. Hooper.”

“Hooper, yes,” Jennings said. “Nakagaki says you’re her best.”

“Yes,” she said. It was a bit more forward than she liked to be, but it was quantifiable in this case. Molly had finished her program top in her class. Demurring wouldn’t help anything.

Dr. Jennings smirked at her. The tall man seemed to be about to make some other cutting comment, but Jennings barreled on ahead before he could.

“This agent—codename: Mr. Bell—has been drugged,” Jennings said. He handed her the chart. “We need to know what he took.”

Molly nodded. Interactions would be a primary concern, particularly if he’d been given multiple things.

“He did not _take_ anything,” the tall man said, glare intensifying. It was all Molly could do not to scowl at him. He’d turned his attention back to Dr. Jennings, though. “It was given to him against his will.

“Myc?” the man on the bed—‘Mr. Bell,’ apparently—said, voice deeper than she’d expected from looking at him. He sounded utterly confused, but his general distress had quieted a bit at the sound of the tall man’s voice.

“Here,” the tall man, Myc, said. He didn’t sound particularly comforting, but he did step closer to the bed and touch Mr. Bell’s head momentarily.

Molly hadn’t seen the family resemblance until that touch. She’d assumed he was Mr. Bell’s handler or his superior officer or something, but that was definitely a familial sort of connection. There wasn’t much resemblance in the face, but they both had dark hair with a bit of curl to it. They were tall—it was hard to tell with Mr. Bell prone on the bed, but she could see it when she looked for it—and not particularly broad. Myc had a bit more muscle, but they both were fairly trim and wiry-looking.

Mr. Bell calmed for a moment, then rolled away from his brother and threw up. The nurses were ready for it.

Molly got to work. Dr. Jennings wanted her to do the lab work on the collected samples, find out what was in the agent’s system so that they could help him. She spent the rest of her shift running the tests and assisting Dr. Jennings; it passed in a flash.

* * *

Molly didn’t have time to think about her odd experience with MI-5. She spent the weekend moving into the spare bedroom at Meena’s place—Meena was more than happy to split the rent and her place was much closer to Bart’s than Molly’s old place—and then she started at Bart’s. She was specializing in pathology; she was in her element—it was the part of medicine she’d fallen in love with, the science-y part.

More than a month went by. Nearly two months. Long enough that, when she did think about it, she wondered if she’d failed some sort of test. Dr. Nakagaki had seemed to think Molly was going to be recruited. Molly didn’t especially _want_ to be recruited, but she didn’t like the open-endedness of not knowing what the hell all that had been about.

She was up to her elbows in a corpse when Myc turned up in the morgue at Bart’s. She’d been in the process of removing the heart to evaluate and weigh it when he swept in and she realized the others who’d been in the morgue had all been paged away over the course of the last half hour. She was alone.

“Miss Hooper,” he said, standing just inside the doors of the morgue, shoulders squared. He looked at the open cavity of the corpse with distaste.

“Myc, wasn’t it?” she asked. She wanted to keep going with the autopsy, but that would probably be interpreted as some sort of power play and she just didn’t have time for it.

“ _Mycroft_ ,” he corrected. Snippy again. “Mycroft Holmes.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Holmes,” she said, not offering to shake his hand. She stepped back from the body, though, and snapped off her gloves, turned off the recorder, removed the rest of her PPE. She’d have an impression across her forehead from the splatter guard, but there was nothing for it. “What can I do for you?”

“My card,” he said after he’d spent a moment looking her over. The look made her skin crawl, but not in the way it usually did when unfamiliar men looked at her too long and too closely. It was a slightly reptilian look. Like he didn’t miss a thing. “And a job offer.”

* * *

“She’s ready for you, Miss,” the PA said, tone warm without actually smiling or even making direct eye contact.

“Thank you,” Molly said, still not sure exactly who she’d be meeting. The car had picked her up outside Bart’s and she’d been delivered to an unfamiliar office building. She’d been patted down for weapons. Her bag had been searched. She’d been deposited in the little waiting area without any information until the PA had finally looked up from her desktop.

The office was one of those tastefully well-appointed rooms that tended to make Molly feel out of place. It didn’t help that there’d been a particularly—squishy—postmortem that afternoon; she’d ended up leaving for the day in scrubs, her own clothes left behind in the biohazard bin.

“Miss Hooper,” the woman behind the desk said, standing to shake her hand. “I’m Lady Alicia Smallwood.”

Lady Smallwood was the sort of woman who could pull off “stately” without even trying, or at least she gave the impression of not having to try. Stately and competent. And her manners were too good for her to so much as glance at Molly’s scrubs.

“I’m sorry,” Molly said after the preliminary sort of introductions and offers of tea had been made, “but I don’t know why I’m…here.”

“You’ve been background-checked, vetted on multiple fronts, monitored, and psychologically profiled… Not to mention, Mycroft Holmes upgraded your clearance not quite a week ago,” Lady Smallwood said, flipping through a manilla folder with official-looking stamps on the front of it and Molly’s staff photo from Bart’s attached with a paperclip.

“I’ve been—what?”

“It says here that MI-6 was interested in recruiting you early in your medical training,” Lady Smallwood continued as if Molly hadn’t spoken. “But you turned them down.”

“Oh. Well. I assumed that was a prank, actually.” Molly chewed on her lip, feeling stupid and out of place.

“I see,” Lady Smallwood said, closing the folder. “This is not a prank, Miss Hooper. You’ve been the top of every class you’ve been in. Polyglot. And Mycroft Holmes wants you as an asset.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Molly said when Lady Smallwood seemed to be waiting for her to respond somehow.

“Inside of the month, you will receive an invitation to a conference in Wales, which you will attend.”

“A conference?”

“It is neither a conference, nor is it in Wales, but that is where St. Bart’s Hospital will think you are.”

* * *

“Miss Hooper,” DI Nguyen said, strolling into the path lab with his usual harried-frazzled air, “I’m wondering if you can pop down to the morgue. I’ve a consultant with me who I’d like to have a look at a body. Paperwork says you did the autopsy.”

“Of course, Inspector,” Molly said. She’d only been sitting in the lab working on paperwork since it was one level up and therefore that much warmer than her office or the morgue. She picked up her files and followed the policeman toward the stairs.

Mr. Bell was waiting for them just outside the morgue, looking annoyed. It had been years. He looked… not _older_ , but he looked a bit used up. Like the last few years had been rather hard on him.

“Specialist Registrar Molly Hooper,” Nguyen said, gesturing to her in introduction. Then he swept his hand to indicate Mr. Bell. “Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective.”

“Consulting detective?” she asked, badging them into the morgue. If she hadn’t known his brother’s name was Holmes, she would’ve suspected it was an alias. ‘Consulting detective’ seemed a bit made up, too.

“The only one there is,” Nguyen said, his tone somewhere between fond and annoyed.

Molly just nodded when neither of them seemed to have anything more to say about it. Mr. Bell—Holmes—was looking at her in that way his brother had, the evaluating look. It wasn’t quite so reptilian on him, but she suspected that was just because he was wearing a really good coat and his hair had grown out a bit since she’d seen him last and it was thick and curly and… Well. She’d always had a type.

“Arthur Daniels,” Molly said, pulling the appropriate corpse out of cold storage.

“I need to see his hands,” Holmes said. He stood next to Nguyen, hands clasped behind his back, body tipped ever so slightly forward so that he seemed to be towering over the corpse. Imperiously waiting to be shown the dead man’s hands.

“Alright.”

Holmes looked over the corpse, took a closer look at the hands. He had a pocket magnifying glass, leaning very close to inspect nailbeds and calluses. He borrowed her measuring tape.

“Well?” Nguyen asked after Holmes had stood back, standing there with a distant look on his face.

“You’ll want to bring in the brother and the wife,” Holmes said, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“The _brother_?”

“Of course the brother. They worked together—same calluses across their palms; they used the same tools, either sharing them or owning the same, doesn’t matter which. According to your pathologist, the victim had no trace of the reddish dust from the worksite. Though there are signs he’d been inhaling it quite regularly there in his cuticles,” Holmes said quickly, almost seeming annoyed that Nguyen needed it spelled out. “The dust is quite toxic inhaled over the duration they would’ve been at the site. Unless he was wearing a respirator while working, first sign of its affects is that faint bluish tinge to his cuticles.”

“They both wore respirators,” Nguyen said, frowning, pulling a little notebook out of his pocket to check his interview notes. “Yeah. We double-checked. Site manager said nobody was allowed on the job without them.”

“You think the wife is trying to kill _both_ of them?” Molly asked, then literally bit down on her tongue to stop herself talking. It wasn’t her place.

Holmes almost smiled at her, though. His eyes glinted. He almost looked interested for the first time since he’d walked in the room.

“Very good, Miss Hooper,” he said. She couldn’t decide if he was being condescending or not.

“Wait,” Nguyen said, gesturing with his notebook. “You’re telling me the wife, what, messed with the respirators?”

“Most likely, yes,” Holmes said.

“So you want me to bring the wife in as in arrest her. But you want me to bring the brother in—”

“Because he needs medical attention, yes.”

“Jesus,” Nguyen muttered, mostly to himself. He turned and hurried out of the morgue, already pulling his mobile out of his pocket as he went.

Molly watched the door close behind him, then went about zipping Mr. Daniels back into the bag and closing him back in cold storage. Holmes watched her, eyes penetrating, evaluating.

“I know you from somewhere,” he said at last. He looked incredibly frustrated with himself for not being able to place her.

“You were more than a bit out of it at the time,” Molly said. “But yes.”

“When? Where?”

“I never got the details, really,” she said. “I was covering a shift at A&E right before I started my specialty training here. You were brought in because you’d been dosed with something and they needed to know what before they could give you anything.”

“Mycroft recruited you,” Holmes said, eyes narrowed.

Molly nodded once. It hadn’t been particularly exciting, really. She’d had some training, and she had to keep a few more credentials up to date than she would’ve otherwise. In reality, her life as an MI-5 asset was the same as it would’ve been as a simple specialist registrar, except a government car picked her up once or twice a month so she could perform autopsies in old war bunkers. Slightly more regularly, she was sent pathology reports to interpret for various agents. It was all very fascinating, but she never had any context to make it truly any sort of adventure.

“Are you on assignment, then?” she asked. She wasn’t sure she was allowed to ask, but she was curious.

“No. I’m not an active agent any longer,” he said. He didn’t sound regretful, but it did sound like there was a story behind it. “I just consult these days. Mostly with the Met. And for Her Majesty, on very special occasions.”

They smiled at each other. He was charming. Too soon to tell if he was really charming or just charming when he wanted to be.

“Well, you know where to find me if you need something,” Molly said when he didn’t seem inclined to leave. “Active or not, I’m glad to help.”

He didn’t say anything. He looked her over again, met her eye. He gave her a shrewd, indecipherable look, and then he left the morgue.

* * *

Not quite three months after her second introduction to Sherlock Holmes, a sleek black car intercepted her on her way to pick up groceries.

“I need your assistance, Miss Hooper,” Mycroft Holmes said. “Unofficial business.”

“Unofficial?”

“My brother… is not well,” he said.

“I know… When we first met—Sir. Um. It’s just—I’m not really that sort of doctor, you see,” she said, feeling incredibly awkward.

She knew a bit about Mycroft Holmes. (Codename: Antarctica.) He was her boss’s boss’s boss. Possibly higher up than that.

“Please,” he said. It looked like it physically pained him to say it.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Will you get in the car?” he asked, eyes darting up and down the mostly empty street like he didn’t want to be overheard.

It wound up being the first time she looked after Sherlock following one of his benders. Mycroft had a list of everything that Sherlock had taken, though how he could be sure she didn’t know.

She was given a copy of his medical file. Parts of it were redacted and large chunks seemed to have been held back entirely, but it gave her a clear enough picture.

Hints of childhood trauma—selective mutism, amnesia. Medicated for various behavioral disorders as a child and teenager. Recreational drug use in his late teens. No known allergies. Old injuries to his hands suggested he’d boxed at school, or possibly he’d just gotten into a lot of fights (or both). He was a year and two days older than her.

He’d overdosed once before, his first year of undergrad. He’d been sent to rehab, put through the standard round of treatment. He seemed to have kept away from the drugs while he was an active agent, or at least well enough that there weren’t any notations in his file about it.

He seemed to have favored cocaine in the past, but it was heroin this time. At least mostly.

* * *

The next time hadn't been an overdose. He'd disappeared for a month, though, and then Mycroft Holmes had turned up at Bart's asking Molly to look after him. She'd had a week off with plans to visit her sister in Glasgow, but he'd already cancelled it.

“So willing to be _helpful_ ,” Sherlock sneered. He wanted another dose of his special little cocktail.

“That’s me,” Molly said agreeably. She shook the bottle of water at him until he took it from her. He didn’t drink it, just sat there and held it.

“Compensating,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“You’re compensating.”

“Compensating for what?” She knew she wouldn’t like what he had to say, but the best avenue of dragging Sherlock through this first bit as the withdrawal really started to hit him was to keep him distracted. And he did so love to hear himself talk.

“Your friend. Sibling? No, a friend,” he said. He gave her that piercing look—or tried to; he was a bit glazed—and pressed the cool water bottle to his forehead. “Some sort of juvenile drug issue. Alcohol? You cut them off rather than help them.”

“Or is it just that I’m a doctor and I don’t like to watch people suffer, even if you did it to yourself?” Molly asked, striving to keep that patient, agreeable tone. He was absolutely right, of course he was; her friend Emma had nearly drowned herself in booze when they were seventeen, and Molly had retreated from the friendship rather than help. “Or maybe it’s that your brother is paying me to look after you.”

“No he’s not,” Sherlock said. He didn’t sound sure, though. Actually, he sounded a bit hurt.

“No. He’s not,” Molly confirmed, but only because he’d sounded so sad that she might only be there for a paycheck.

He gulped down half the water, then spent a solid minute trying to get the bottle to balance on the arm of his chair.

“You’re a pushover, Molly,” he said.

“Maybe I just care.”

“Sentiment,” he scoffed. “You’ll end up losing, in the end, if you let all that _caring_ take control of your life.”

“Well,” Molly said, taking the water bottle back before it could topple and make a mess, “at this rate, you’ll end up losing to drugs before I lose to sentiment.”

Sherlock drew his legs up to his chest, wrapped his dressing gown around himself, and pretended not to have heard her.

* * *

Barely two months later, Mycroft summoned her to watch over Sherlock again. There was no car, no veiled threats about what would happen to her if things went south with his brother. It was just a text, and she hadn’t realized he’d put his number in her phone until she’d received it.

BAD NIGHT. MONTAGUE STREET. IMMEDIATELY.

She’d been halfway through a reply—she was at work, due to work an overnight and nobody to cover the lab—when one of her coworkers arrived.

“Oh. I thought you’d gone already,” he said.

“Um. No.”

“I’ve got this covered, don’t worry,” he said. He smiled, but she couldn’t tell if it was a friendly commiserating sort of smile or a pitying smile. Molly wondered what Mycroft had said. “Are you in the middle of anything I should know about?”

“No. I’d only begun to prep Mrs. Gray.”

“Alright. I’ll start there, then.”

Molly took off her gloves, hung up her coat. Sherlock had told her Mycroft _was_ the British government, but she’d thought he’d been joking.

There was a conspicuously nondescript black car waiting for her when she walked out of Bart’s. The driver tipped his hat to her—“Miss Hooper”—and handed her an envelope once she’d got in the back. It had a list of what Sherlock had taken and a key to his flat.


	2. friends with benefits

Molly frowned at the clock. It was nearly six; she should’ve left at five when her shift ended. She really didn’t want to go sit in her empty flat by herself, though. Not tonight.

She’d given up holding out hope for a text from Jules. In years past, her friend had always remembered, had always thrown together an “impromptu” girls’ night out. Molly had broken up with Jules’s brother just over a month ago, though, and apparently the familial duty of the ended relationship meant that Molly was left out in the cold on the anniversary of her dad’s death.

“Molly. Good.” Sherlock breezed into her office, coat swirling around his ankles. She was almost glad to see him. A request for human remains would be a welcome distraction even if it came along with rude observations about her person and social life. “Get your coat.”

“My coat?” That was the last thing she would’ve guessed he’d ask her to fetch him.

“Yes. Your coat.” He looked down his nose at her. “It’s quite cold outside.”

“I don’t understand,” she said stupidly, but she stood up and began putting her coat on, looping her scarf around her neck.

“We’re going to the pub.”

“Excuse me?”

“Really, Molly, you’re never this slow.” His eyes darted across her face then the rest of her. Cold and assessing. He didn’t share what he observed.

The moment she had her coat buttoned, he turned and led the way out of the building. There was a cab waiting.

“On to the final destination, then,” Sherlock instructed the cabbie once they were seating.

“Where are we going?” she asked him again.

“The pub.”

“For a case?”

“No.” His eyebrows drew together. “I never eat when I’m on a case. You know that.”

“Right.”

The ride was brief. He’d taken her to a part of the city she wasn’t familiar with, but, knowing Sherlock, they’d have the best chips in Europe or something along those lines. Or possibly he’d bought drugs out of the back room at some point. It was hard to tell with him.

“Two,” Sherlock said when they walked in, waving at the bartender. “And two ciders.”

“Never pegged you for a cider guy,” she said, following him to a corner booth near the back. The place was fairly empty, but Sherlock seemed to have his particular place in the establishment.

“They brew their own here,” Sherlock explained.

“Ah.”

Tall glasses of hard cider were delivered to the table, followed not quite a full minute later by baskets of fish and chips. Sherlock tucked in like she’d never seen him eat before, and she realized she was famished. It was all delicious. The fish was flaky, the batter crisp. The cider was perfect.

They chatted. She’d known Sherlock Holmes for almost two and a half years, and she’d never heard him _chat_. And yet the conversation meandered from the paper she was working on to his brother to acquaintances they had in common to the forecast. The pub had filled up a bit since they’d arrived, and Sherlock shared his observations of their fellow patrons; she had the strangest suspicion that he was trying to make her laugh.

“Sherlock, really,” she said when they’d been in the pub for hours. Their chips had long been cleared away, their ciders refilled more than a few times. She was feeling full and comfortably loose. “What are we doing here?”

They were friends. Molly was his contact at the hospital. His colleague. The person his brother called when he needed to tap out for a bit when Sherlock went off the rails (though she hadn’t had to play that role in over a year; he’d been doing well since that last cycle through rehab). And, after she’d figured out how to work with him without wanting to lock him in cold storage, his friend.

At least she thought they were friends; she wasn’t so sure what _he_ thought of their… acquaintanceship.

They did not, however, go out for drinks. They barely even grabbed lunch together.

“Julia is cross with you,” he said, speaking to his cider glass instead of her. He looked like a child caught keeping secrets.

“Yes.”

“Today is the anniversary of the day your father died.”

“Yes.” A little quieter that time.

“Julia usually makes sure you have something to keep your mind off things every year. Makes sure you aren’t alone.” He glanced up at her, checking her expression to see if she was upset with him, then returned his eyes to his glass. “But she isn’t speaking to you, so she didn’t invite you out.”

“Thank you, Sherlock. I—” She had to swallow hard against a sudden lump in her throat. “I really appreciate it.”

And she did. It was very much out of his wheelhouse, so far as she was aware, to be _supportive_.

He shrugged, gesturing to the bartender for another round.

They returned to chatting. Sherlock was obviously uncomfortable with the emotional moment, and she was grateful to him so she let him move the conversation along. He talked her through his latest case. She told him about her breakup.

“Well, I suppose if you’re after a rebound shag, you should know that the bartender is willing,” he said, so offhand that she choked on her drink. She spluttered and coughed.

“Sherlock! You can’t just _say_ that.”

“Why not? It’s true enough.”

“How would _you_ know?” she asked, then flushed crimson because it was a very rude thing to say. “I mean—Sorry—That was—”

“Stop it,” he said, all but rolling his eyes.

“Well, it’s just—”

“Are you not in the market for a rebound shag, then? Are you more the ice cream and _romcoms_ type?”

He sneered out ‘romcoms’ and it made her smile.

“Neither,” she said, shrugging. “I usually clean my flat like some kind of maniac.”

“That’s a remarkably practical coping mechanism.”

“Thank you.”

That made _him_ laugh. She wasn’t sure she’d ever heard him laugh before, at least not like that. A proper laugh.

“What about you?” she asked.

He gave her a blank look. Confused.

“Your post-breakup coping mechanism?” she elaborated. “I’m guessing not the romcoms.”

“It’s really not my area,” he said dismissively, taking a long draft from his cider.

She narrowed her eyes at him, trying to give him her best critical look even though she’d progressed from pleasantly loose to slightly tipsy.

“Do you date, Sherlock?” she asked. She’d never seen him with a date, never heard him talk about plans or a particular person in a romantic sort of way. She hadn’t thought anything of it, assuming it was simply part of his life he didn’t want to share with her. They were work friends.

“Absolutely not.” He almost seemed offended.

“Are you _married_?” The thought tickled her. Sherlock Holmes secretly married.

“ _No_.”

“Why not?” She frowned at him. “You’re attractive.”

“Thank you.”

“No, I meant—”

“I know what you meant.”

“Well, why not then?”

“Don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t.” He rolled his eyes and gave her that ‘you are not usually this dense’ look again.

“You don’t like sex?”

“I like sex fine.”

“But not enough to find somebody to do sex with?”

He raised his eyebrows at her, then reached over and switched their glasses so that his emptier one was in front of her. She scowled at him, but didn’t actually protest; she half-agreed that she’d had just about enough to drink.

“You know me, Molly. I don’t have a regular schedule. I have the Yard in my flat at all hours about cases.”

“And doing drugs busts.”

“Yes, those too.”

“I suppose you do that thing where you don’t talk, too.”

“That thing where I don’t talk?” he parroted back not quite snidely.

“Your mind palace.” She touched her fingers to her temples, attempting to look Zen. “You go into your own head and don’t talk for hours. Days.”

“How would _you_ know,” he sneered.

“Mrs. Hudson told me.” The landlady at his new flat was delightfully strange; she’d never once batted an eyelash when Molly showed up with the HUMAN TISSUES cooler.

“Hmph.” He drank some of the cider that had been hers. “Well then there’s that, too.”

“And you’re kind of an arse.”

“Only kind of?”

“Well, sometimes you’re very kind. It’s unpredictable.”

“The short version is that I’m no good for a _relationship_ ,” Sherlock said, waving his hand at her to make her stop talking.

“Friends with benefits!” she said a little too brightly, slapping her hand over her mouth to stifle the mad giggle that tried to escape. Sherlock scowled at her, and that made her laugh all the more.

“I don’t have _friends_ , either, Molly.”

“You’ve got me. And Mrs. Hudson.” She tried to think of more people she knew who seemed to like him, but the list was woefully short. “Lestrade?”

“Are you suggesting—”

“You know, I tried to do friends with benefits once,” she told him before he could say something rude about how little she knew him that she could only list his landlady and his other work friend. He was the definition of tall, dark and handsome; of _course_ he’d have attractive, posh friends he wouldn’t introduce to the lab girl at Bart’s. “In medical school.”

“Really?” She couldn’t tell from his tone if he was interested or disgusted.

“Yep.” She reached for the cider she’d pushed away and took a sip. It really was amazing cider. “It didn’t work very well.”

“Why not?” Interested. Definitely interested, or at the very least curious.

“We couldn’t stop laughing.”

“It’s been said that a partner you can laugh with in bed is something to be desired,” he said, like he was reciting a fact that he’d read in a book once.

“I suppose,” Molly said, trying to think back on her relationships. She couldn’t think of anybody she’d actually laughed with during sex. “But Paul and I—that was the friend with the benefits—whenever we tried to do anything romantic, we got the giggles. Like little kids. We liked each other and we were attracted to each other, but whenever things started to get hot and heavy…” She trailed off and shrugged.

“Huh.” Sherlock sat back from the table, contemplating her very seriously. After just long enough that she’d begun to feel awkward, he said, “I accept your proposal.”

“My proposal?”

“Friends with benefits.”

“Friends with benefits?”

“Yes. I’m willing to give it a try.”

“With… Lestrade?”

“With _you_.” He shot her that look again.

“ _Me_?” she squeaked.

“We find each other attractive.” He rolled his eyes at her. “Really, Molly, it’s not a totally outlandish idea.”

“It’s not?”

“No.” He sat back from the table again, looking quite comfortable. “We like the same sorts of takeout. We’re comfortable with odd hours and irregular schedules.”

“And we find each other… attractive.”

“Precisely.” He smiled like he was proud of her for finally catching up. “I’m a high-functioning sociopath; there will never be _feelings_. But consenting adults can find some release together, can we not?”

“What if we get the giggles?” she asked, trying to buy herself some time to wrap her head around it all. The conversation had taken a very unexpected turn.

“Well, let’s find out.”

Suddenly he was very close. He’d scooted down the bench and around the corner so that he was next to her. He seemed tall even sitting down. She let herself wonder what it would feel like to run her fingers through his hair.

“Okay,” she whispered when she realized he was waiting for verbal consent.

He reached up, cradling her face in his hands, then kissed her.

She didn’t feel the slightest inclination to giggle.

“Come back to Baker Street with me?” he asked, ending the kiss much too soon.

“No,” she said, leaning in and kissing along his jaw just because she could. “Back to mine.”

“But—”

“You have a nosey landlady,” Molly said. “I have a management company that doesn’t care who sleeps over so long as the rent comes in on time and nobody is cooking meth on premises.”

He snorted, pulling her closer to him—she was almost in his lap—and kissing her again. “Fine,” he said between kisses. “Your place.”

* * *

Molly had half expected it to be a one-and-done. It had been so far out of the normal purview of their relationship, and they’d both been slightly drunk.

But in the morning, they’d lounged together in bed discussing the arrangement like they were negotiating some sort of contract.


	3. the death of Martha Marie Lennox

Sleeping with Sherlock had been a mistake. Well, not at first. At first, it had been absolutely great.

She’d always dreaded the day some wrench fell into their works—it had all be bumping along so nicely; her job was interesting and fulfilling, she adored her friends, she’d found a flat she liked, and the man she was sleeping with didn’t expect her to pretend to be an empty-headed idiot for the blokes at the pub. Something was bound to ruin it, because nothing ever stayed that good for long.

For nearly a full year, things were great. They got together sporadically, making a game out of keeping their little arrangement from landing on Mycroft’s radar. Sherlock was not interested in sex in the least when he was on a case, but he was more than willing to indulge the rest of the time.

And then Martha Marie Lennox died.

Autopsies on children had always been the most difficult part of her job. She didn’t have to do them often, luckily, but every once in a while there was a Martha Marie Lennox.

She’d been four. She’d arrived in pink polka dot tights that had grass stains on the knees. Molly had had to stop more than half a dozen times during the autopsy to get her emotions under control so that she could do a proper examination, collect the data and evidence the police would need to bring their case against the horrible person who had killed the little girl laid out on the cold metal table.

When she’d finally finished, Molly had gone and sat in her office for almost an hour. She’d let herself cry. Then she’d started on her paperwork.

It was nearing the end of her shift when Sherlock arrived. He waltzed in like he owned the place as usual, collar turned up. She didn’t usually take particular notice of him, but something about him that evening was… off-putting. Arrogant.

She wanted to yell at him for walking in like it was any other day where there was a _little girl_ in cold storage.

“Molly,” he said, spotting her. He either didn’t notice her sour look or didn’t care. “I need to see the body from this morning. Surname: Lennox.”

Furious with him, seething silently because she wasn’t quite able to put into words _why_ she was so angry when it didn’t bother her when he was flippant about adult victims, Molly stalked over and yanked the tray out for him. Martha Marie Lennox didn’t take up half the space, but Molly pulled the tray all the way out anyway. So he’d have to see how small she was.

She glared at him, but froze when she saw his face. He hadn’t realized she was a child. He was staring at the little body covered in the sheet.

She’d never seen him devastated before.

Quietly, all the rage drained out of her, Molly recited her findings from the autopsy. She showed him the girl’s face, the marks on her arms, the welts and bruises around her ankles. Sherlock asked all the right questions, voice very quiet. Soft, almost.

“I’m going to find who did this to her,” he said when they’d finished, when the sheet had been draped over her again and the door had been latched. All the fury that she’d had burning in the pit of her stomach when he’d entered the morgue seemed to have taken up residence in him now, though in him it was ice cold.

Molly just nodded.

He’d left, and all she’d been able to think about was that he’d lied to her. He’d told her he was a sociopath. But he wasn’t

He _cared_. He could feel things. He did feel things.

Deeply.

* * *

Something had shifted in their relationship after Martha Marie Lennox, and something shifted again not quite a month later.

Sanjay had done the autopsy.

“You’ve got to come look at this one,” he’d told her over lunch after he’d finished. “It’s your doppelgänger. I swear. It’s uncanny.”

It had been. The woman was petite, pale. She had brown eyes and long brown hair. According to her paperwork, her name was Kari Bloom, she was a widow. She’d had a daughter, but the girl had died in the same accident that had killed her husband. She was a few years young than Molly, or had been. A little different from Molly, but, in the end, a young, professional woman with similar coloring and bone structure making her way in the world alone.

Molly had got back to her own work, filing results from the morning’s labs. She had a twin sister; it wasn’t so unusual to see somebody with the same face. (Actually, she’d had a horrified moment when she thought maybe Ellie had been in London without saying anything, because they weren’t close so she wouldn’t have called ahead or anything…) She hadn’t thought of the lookalike again until Sherlock had arrived to take the case. That’s when things had started to be… odd.

He’d spent a week on the case, all told. Throughout that week, starting from that very first day, he’d appeared by her side at random to check her pulse. She hadn’t realized what he was up to at first, simply walking over to her and taking her by the wrist for a moment before wandering away again. Once, he’d even burst into the lab, checked her pulse, then stalked out again without a word.

He also turned up at her flat in the dead of night. Twice.

He never wanted sex when he was on a case. He didn’t claim it slowed his process the way digesting did, but he seemed too invested in the case, the puzzle of all the clues. That time, though, he’d turned up on her doorstep in a state, then fucked her with abandon. He’d held her until she’d fallen asleep, and then was gone in the morning. She’d hoped he’d gotten at least a few hours sleep, but she wouldn’t have put it past him slipping out of bed the moment she’d drifted off. He never slept well when he was on a case—too many thoughts chasing around in his brain.

When it was over, after he’d solved it (supervisor at work thought upper management was looking to replace him with the victim), he’d made love to her. Slow, aching, tender.

It wasn’t that they’d never had gentle, comforting sorts of sex before. It was the way he held her and moved with her, in her. The way he’d been checking her pulse for a week to make sure she still had one.

He’d been the one to warn off feelings, to make sure she wasn’t expecting anything from him emotionally. She’d been fine with that until _he’d_ gone and gotten emotional. And it had been… really nice. Wonderful, even.

He disappeared for just over six months after that. He turned up on her afternoon off, the usual packet of documents in hand: He’d been on a bender. His brother had tracked him down and stuck him in rehab. Again.

It had been their agreement from the beginning. If he took drugs—any drugs, and even if nobody caught him—he had to bring her a copy of his bloodwork to prove he was clean. He’d only tried to climb into her bed high once, and she’d very nearly broken his nose. He also had to bring her a copy of his STI results. (He’d asked the same of her in the handful of times she’d tried to have a normal relationship, bringing him her own little packet of paperwork before he’d let her return to his bed.)

“Okay,” she said. She knew better than to try to ask him _why_. Knew better than to pity him. Knew better than to try to talk about it. She just let him in. He spent the afternoon on her couch reading her collection of trade journals.

They ordered Thai for dinner. After, he pulled into his lap and snogged her until she was blissfully limp.

“Take me to bed, Sherlock,” she whispered. And he did.


	4. the blogging doctor

“What do you think of John Watson?”

Molly looked up, not really surprised to see Mycroft Holmes looming over her solitary table at the cafeteria.

“Hello, Mycroft,” she said with cheerful politeness, gesturing to the other chair, “won’t you please join me? It’s been so long since we talked.”

Mycroft, in fact, had been in touch with her more often than Sherlock lately. He popped in and out of her lab like usual, but he was still sorting out how to function with a flatmate. More particularly, a flatmate that he actually liked.

They’d given him an ultimatum. Mycroft and Mrs. Hudson.

For months, he’d been off the rails. It took less than it ever had to set him on a downward spiral. It was anyone’s guess every morning what Sherlock would be up to—would he be in top form taking consulting clients, or would he be laying on the floor of 221B off his tits on heroin or who-knew-what. He’d been hospitalized twice for overdoses, refused to submit to rehab.

Mrs. Husdon had begun to call Lestrade almost daily, worried out of her mind for him. Lestrade had told her so one afternoon when she’d run into him getting coffee before heading in for the late shift.

Finally, Mycroft and Mrs. H had sat Sherlock down and told him they were done. He needed a flatmate. Somebody to keep an eye on him, somebody to distract him. If he didn’t find one himself, they’d select one for him. If he refused, he couldn’t stay at Baker Street any longer.

Mycroft had made it clear that he preferred Molly to move in. She was “familiar with Sherlock and his ways.” She had a medical background. She’d looked after him before.

“It can’t be me,” she’d said. “You know it can’t be me.”

He’d given her that disdainful look that seemed genetic to the Holmes boys, but he hadn’t pushed.

She knew herself well enough to know that she could easily fall for Sherlock Holmes. It would be horrible; _he’d_ be horrible. But it would happen, because he was smart and handsome and even if he tended to be an arse about it he _did_ help people.

Sherlock had gone through four flatmates in two months.

The first two had been addicts with no interest in sobering up. Molly suspected he’d invited them just to piss off Mycroft. Mrs. H had been having none of it, though; she’d almost thrown him out with the second one.

The third would’ve been great. A doctor from St. Bart’s, recently divorced. He worked the night shift, though, so needed quiet during the daytime so he could sleep. He’d lasted ten days only because that was how long it took him to find a different place.

Then there was poor Chuck, who’d had no idea what he was getting into and even less idea how to deal with it.

The only positive result was that, after those four, Sherlock had realized that Mycroft and Mrs. Hudson were serious about it.

He’d turned up at her doorstep a week after Chuck had moved on, the usual paperwork in hand and a troubled look on his face.

He hadn’t even wanted sex; he’d just wanted to sleep next to her. Her heart had broken for him a little bit.

“I like him,” Molly told Mycroft.

“You like him?” Mycroft prompted snidely. It was his way of asking for more information.

“I think he’s exactly what Sherlock needs.” She shrugged. “He’s smart, patient. He thinks Sherlock’s deductions are fascinating and clever.”

“Does he?”

“Even when he’s a dick, John seems to think it’s funny.”

She’d made the mistake of asking Sherlock out for coffee the day she met John. It could’ve gone worse, but he hadn’t turned up to so much as pilfer her reading materials since. She liked to think that it was because he was busy making a friend, but she wasn’t so sure she hadn’t soured things.

She’d been hoping to check on him. And she’d been hoping to fan that flame a little; she couldn’t seem to help it. There was a little voice in the back of her head that kept telling her she and Sherlock Holmes could be great together. Properly together.

“Hm.” Mycroft seemed distracted.

“He turned you down, didn’t he?” Molly asked, the pieces falling into place. She wanted to laugh. “John. He wouldn’t take the money.”

“No. He wouldn’t.”

“Well, that proves it then.”

“Proves what? That he’s stupid?”

“No, that he’s the right person.” It was all she could do not to roll her eyes. “Sherlock needs somebody loyal to _him_ , not to you.”

“Same thing.”

“That’s very sweet of you.”

Mycroft’s lip curled and he stood.

“A pleasure to see you, Miss Hooper.”

“And you, Mr. Holmes.”

He swept away, somehow blending into the crowd despite his bespoke suit and ever-present umbrella. She found herself wondering just what the Holmes parents had done when Sherlock and Mycroft were teenagers with all that _sweeping_ about. It must’ve been very melodramatic.

* * *

Things were almost back to normal in the following weeks. John was very good for Sherlock—not only because he was willing to tag along on cases, but because he kept actual food with nutritional value at the flat.

Molly met up with Mike and Greg for the first time in months to have an easy night out for drinks, comparing notes on what Sherlock had been getting up to and who he’d annoyed the most (they all agreed Anderson and Donovan were tied as his latest targets). Sherlock popped round for a shag just like he used to. Meena was absolutely mad for her new girlfriend and texted constantly about how wonderful it was to be in a stable relationship. Sanjay continued to shove her lunch to the very back of the break room refrigerator.

Mrs. Hudson seemed to think John and Sherlock were a couple, and it was bloody hilarious.


	5. not his area

“Are you still seeing that bloke from IT?”

“No. Not for weeks now,” Molly said, looking up from the microscope eyepiece. Sherlock had a strange look on his face—stranger than she’d expected even for stalking into her lab in the middle of the night shift. “I would’ve given you paperwork, but I never slept with him.”

“Oh. Good. That’s… good.”

“Why do you suddenly care?” She returned her focus to the slide, mostly because she didn’t want Sherlock to know she was interested. He’d never once asked after her dates or relationships; it was unusual.

“He just tried to blow up John.”

“ _Excuse me_?” She stood up so quickly that the stool she’d been sitting on screeched against the tile floor and wobbled like it might fall over before stabilizing.

“He was the focus of my last case, turns out. James Moriarty. Runs a crime syndicate—quite possibly internationally, though I’ve only begun looking into him beyond London.”

“Was I a mark?” she asked. Molly expected panic or some other sort of reaction to overtake her, but it didn’t seem to be coming. Just curiosity. “He was using me to get to you?”

“I don’t think so, no,” he said, drawling in that tone that meant he hadn’t really thought about that angle because it was so unlikely. “Possibly he used you to have a reason to be down in the lab when I stopped by. It’s probably how he knew to grab John, to put the vest on him.”

“Is John alright?” Molly asked. She’d met him a handful of times, had his contact info saved in her phone, but they weren’t friends as such. He was very dear to Sherlock, though. “He wasn’t hurt?”

“No. John’s fine,” he said, waving a hand like they were talking about him missing the last step on the staircase rather than almost being blown up by her ex. “He was a soldier. He dealt with more stress than that any day of the week.”

“Are _you_ alright?” She was beginning to wonder if she had to warn Mrs. H to check his usual hidey-holes for paraphernalia.

“I wasn’t the one in the vest.”

“No, but your friend was. He could have died. Sounds like you could have died, too.”

He made an exaggerated sort of shrug, then plopped himself down across the workstation from her.

“So. Jim’s some sort of criminal?” she asked when he didn't elaborate.

“Yes. A very interesting sort of criminal,” Sherlock said, his eyes alight. “Tell me everything about him.”

“We—we didn’t actually spend that much time together. A few dates.” She shrugged, hooking her foot around the leg of her stool to pull it back into position so she could sit down again. “He was charming, I guess.”

“Yes, they always are.”

“They?”

“The psychopaths.”

Molly frowned, the cold edge of that panic she’d been waiting for finally arriving in the pit of her stomach.

* * *

And then she didn’t see him for six months. Again.

He texted sporadically. Asking off-the-wall case-related things like she was his personal Google. Complaining about John’s girlfriend or his brother’s machinations.

She asked him, via text, if he’d like to come over. The offer was obvious. He’d ignored it and invited her to the Christmas do he and John were having at their flat.

_What the hell is that supposed to mean?_

The thought chased itself around her mind for days. She’d said she’d go—of course she had, Mrs. Hudson had extended the invitation as well as Sherlock. Greg said he might go, too, though it depended on how things came together with his wife.

She’d almost begged off at the last minute. She’d dressed up—done her hair, found a nice dress—and she’d bought presents, but… She’d been standing outside 221, listening to Sherlock play something festive on his violin, and she desperately wished for her horrible Christmas jumper and a bit of solitude to think of Christmases with her dad before he’d passed.

_Nothing for it, Molly_ , she thought to herself. _You’re here. Just go up the stairs and turn on the holiday cheer._

“Hello everyone, sorry I’m late,” she said walking in, plastering a smile on her face. Her eyes found Sherlock, desperately hoping he would look at her and see her like he had those years ago, see that she was missing her dad, see that she was feeling awkward. “It said on the door just to come up.”

It was immediately clear that Sherlock was just as at odds as she was, though. And where she handled it by smiling too much and making morgue jokes (that never went over as well as she thought they should), he lashed out and made deductions of people until they were annoyed enough at him to leave him alone.

“Yes, let’s all say hello to each other,” he muttered while the others greeted her. “Wonderful.”

For a moment, it seemed like it would be alright. Sherlock had moved his focus to John’s blog. Lestrade offered to grab her a drink. But then Sherlock started in on the deductions.

“I see you’ve got a new boyfriend, Molly, and you’re serious about him,” he said when he’d finished with Lestrade and John.

“What?” It was just about the last thing she would’ve thought he’d say. “Sorry. What.”

“You’re seeing him this very night and giving him a gift.” He was doing that fake-smile that he did. Practically bouncing in his seat.

John was hissing something Molly couldn’t make out over the pounding of blood in her ears.

_No. Please don’t_ , she thought. _Please don’t embarrass me tonight._

“Sherlock, have a drink,” Lestrade said.

It was almost worse because they could all see it about to happen. Sherlock was about to say something rude and he was blatantly ignoring all their attempts to sidetrack him.

“Surely you can all see the present at the top of the bag,” Sherlock said, ignoring the glass Lestrade had set down for him. “Perfectly wrapped with a bow. All the others are slapdash at best.”

For a horrible moment, she thought he was referencing the bow in her hair. It was silver to match her earrings and the trim on her dress. She’d had half a thought to make a bad pun about her being a present for him as well, after everybody else had left, but she was certainly not going to make that comment after all this.

The present on the top of the bag, the one he was looking at, was for him. The one she’d found first, wrapped ages ago because she’d always planned to get him a Christmas gift whether he invited her to his party or not. The others had been hastily wrapped, that was true enough, but it was because she had picked them up the previous weekend and only remembered to wrap them after work that afternoon.

“Someone special then. Shade of red echoes the lipstick. Either an unconscious association or one that she’s deliberately trying to encourage. Either way, Miss Hooper has _love_ on her mind—”

She couldn’t even look at him. She half wondered if the lipstick was indeed an unconscious association, but even wondering about it made her angrier at him. It was _lipstick_. She rarely wore it, owned only four shades.

“—The fact that she’s serious about him is clear from the fact she’s giving him a gift at all. That always suggests long-term hopes, however forlorn, and that she’s seeing him tonight is evident from her make-up and what she’s wearing,” he said. He’d picked up his gift, turning it over in his hands as he talked. He wouldn’t look her in the eye. “Obviously trying to compensate for the size of her mouth and breasts…”

And then he finally looked at the tag.

“You always say such horrible things,” she said. She’d always given him a pass before. Every time. Let him off as the unfeeling sociopath who didn’t know better, even though she _knew_ that he absolutely _did_ know better. She couldn’t do it this time. Not in front of all the friends they had in common. John and Greg who she’d see again at work. “Every time. Always. Always.”

She was trying very hard not to cry. Or scream at him. Her heart was pounding too hard for her to decide which one. And they were all looking at her with such pity, looking at him with such reproach.

And he looked so damned contrite.

And then he did something surprisingly and utterly unlike him.

“I am sorry,” he said. “Forgive me.”

He looked her in the eye as he said it, not playing for anybody watching them. Just for her.

“Merry Christmas, Molly Hooper.”

And he kissed her on the cheek.

For a split second, she wondered how the hell any of them would be able to pull the evening back from _that_ debacle, wondered if she should just leave and delete his damned number from her phone, and then his phone bloody _moaned_.

“Oh, no! That wasn’t—I didn’t—” she said, jerking away, scrambling.

_Could this evening get any_ more _embarrassing?_

“No, it was me,” Sherlock said, all but rolling his eyes.

“My God, really?” Greg asked.

“What?” She’d known it was his phone because she was close enough to tell it had come from his pocket, but it still made no sense.

Unless.

_My God, he’s been seeing somebody else. That’s why he hasn’t turned up. That’s why he didn’t respond the other night. Maybe that’s even why he invited me tonight—she’s going to be here and he wanted to make me aware of her without actually telling me about it._

“My phone,” Sherlock said, glaring at Lestrade.

“Fifty-seven,” John said.

“Sorry, what?” Sherlock asked, turning his back on them all while he looked at his phone.

“Fifty-seven of those texts, the ones I’ve heard.”

“Thrilling that you’ve been counting.”

Molly wanted to leave. She hadn’t even finished a single drink, but she was done with the evening.

“Excuse me,” he said, taking a small package off the mantelpiece and turning away from them all again. Not making eye contact as he headed for the kitchen.

“What’s up, Sherlock?” John asked. Molly couldn’t tell if he was concerned or interested in whatever intrigue Sherlock and his new girlfriend were playing out.

“I said excuse me.” There was no inflection in his tone, no anger or sharpness. He merely repeated that he was excusing himself from the room. From the party.

She couldn’t help but notice that he’d left her gift, unopened, on the table by the drink he also hadn’t touched.

“Do you ever reply?” John called after him.

Molly gulped at her wine. She both wanted to know the answer and very desperately did not.

After a moment, John followed Sherlock out. The rest of them stayed in the living room, frozen. Mrs. Hudson got up and started fussing, bringing a cheese platter out. Greg handed her a drink, this one stronger than the wine and much appreciated.

* * *

Her phone rang just before midnight. She’d just traded her party dress for a cozy holiday jumper.

“Yes. This is Hooper,” she said, because it could only be Bart’s calling her in this time of night.

“Miss Hooper,” Mycroft said, and his voice had her sitting upright, checking the time again. “I need you to perform an autopsy.”

“What, now?” she asked dumbly.

“Yes. Now.”

“It’s not Sherlock, is it?” She hated to ask it, especially when it was Christmas, but it was the first thing that had come to mind.

“No. It is certainly not Sherlock,” Mycroft said patiently. “I will be bringing him by before you begin, though, to identify the body.”

“Alright.”

He disconnected the call.

She didn’t want to see him again, especially not so soon after the pure horrible awkwardness of the party, but there was nothing for it. She’d have to see him eventually anyway. She called herself a cab.

The body waiting for her in the morgue—under guard—was… everything Molly herself was not. Curvy, feminine. She was missing most of her face, so Molly couldn’t tell if she’d had a beautiful face to go with the rest of her or not. She’d had brown hair, still shaped by careful hairspray even if it no longer held whatever fashionable coif it had started in.

“Had her brought here. Your home away from home,” Mycroft said as the brothers walked up.

“You didn’t need to come in, Molly,” Sherlock said. He didn’t seem to be able to look her in the eye, and just like that she wanted to forgive him. Wanted to think that he’d been trying to celebrate the assumption that she’d found somebody when he had found somebody as well. It was likely he just couldn’t help himself like it had been every time before, but she didn’t seem to be able to help herself either.

“It’s okay; everyone else was busy with Christmas,” she said. She just wanted to get on with it, get the Holmes brothers out of the morgue, get on with the postmortem. “The face is a bit bashed up, so it might be a bit difficult.”

She folded back the sheet. It was hard to tell, without a more thorough examination, if the damage to the face had been to disguise the method of the killing or to disguise the identity of the victim. It was a bit gruesome, either way.

“That’s her, isn’t it?” Mycroft asked.

“Show me the rest of her,” Sherlock instructed. Molly did, noting that his eyes simply scanned the body once up and down, and then he moved away. “That’s her.”

“Thank you, Miss Hooper,” Mycroft said. He actually looked a bit stunned. Like Sherlock’s request had given something away that he wasn’t expecting.

_Sherlock had seen her naked. This Irene Adler. The woman whose alert tone in his phone was_ that _noise._

“Who is she?” she couldn’t help but ask. If anybody would know, it would be his brother, right? “How did Sherlock recognize her from… not her face?”

Mycroft just smiled and left.

* * *

He turned up in the lab after New Year’s. He appeared to be x-raying—

“Is that a phone?”

“A camera phone.”

“And you’re x-raying it?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Whose phone is it?” she asked. An olive branch. It could be just like when she was trying to have a relationship, when they went back to just being friends without the benefits.

“A woman’s.” He wouldn’t look at her.

“Your girlfriend?”

“You think she’s my girlfriend because I’m x-raying her possessions?”

“Well. We all do silly things.”

“Yes…” And then he turned to look her in the eye for the first time since he’d apologized to her at the Christmas party. “They do, don’t they? Very silly.”

He got up, retrieving the phone. It seemed she’d sparked an idea.

“She sent this to my address,” he said, entering a code into the phone. “She loves to play games.”

“She does?”

Instead of answering, he scowled at the phone when the code didn’t unlock it. Molly tried to be okay with the idea that he had a girlfriend who liked to play games. Flirtations games? Sex games?

She was not jealous. She would not allow herself to be jealous. That had been part of those boundaries they’d set up at the start of it all.

* * *

He didn’t turn up for months. Oh, she saw him at Bart’s plenty, but never in a friendly capacity. He seemed to be deep into something. Even John was on the outside, from the sound of things.

And then, late one evening, she heard the key in the door.

She expected paperwork, but he didn’t have any.

“I didn’t sleep with her,” he said, eyebrows drawn together.

“Did you want to?” Molly asked. She felt inadequate somehow. She’d just finished getting ready for bed—she was in flannel pajama bottoms patterned with cartoon cats and a camisole so threadbare she would’ve been embarrassed for him to see if he hadn’t spent so much time with her naked. She was so completely opposite that other woman, the dominatrix.

“Not really,” he said, tilting his head thoughtfully. “I did enjoy being tempted by the idea of it, though.”


	6. the family Holmes

“What are you doing this Saturday?” Sherlock asked apropos of nothing.

“Um. Laundry?” She wasn’t on rotation for the weekend, Greg and Mike both were, and Meena was off to Scotland for a conference. She’d been planning to do the bare-minimum of the usual sorts of weekend chores that needed to be done, and then indulge in a weekend on the couch with Netflix.

“Excellent,” he said. “Wear something smart but comfortable. And good walking shoes.”

“To…do my laundry?” She gave him her best blank look, and he rolled his eyes.

“No. Anniversary party in Sussex.”

“I can’t tell if you’re kidding,” she said.

“Not kidding. Also not going alone.” He stood and put his coat on with the usual flourish. “I’ll pick you up at 7.”

And he was gone.

“Whose anniversary?” she asked the empty room, and sighed.

She could just make a point of not being home at 7 Saturday morning, but she really didn’t have anything better on.

* * *

“This do?” she asked when he turned up early on Saturday. She’d gone with her green dress and beige flats. Hair pulled into a loose chignon sort of thing. Smart but comfortable, he’d said. “Do I need my sweater? Where are we going?”

“I told you. Sussex.”

“What’s in Sussex?”

“Anniversary party.”

“You’re being deliberately obtuse.”

She locked up the flat and climbed into the car, though. Once upon a time, this outing would’ve had her thinking hopeful thoughts about the way he’d checked her pulse that time after her doppelgänger died. She knew better, though. He’d told her not to expect feelings, sentimental attachment, and she didn’t.

She just really hoped he wasn’t going to ask her to pretend to be his girlfriend for a case or something, though, because she wasn’t sure she’d be able to manage it unscathed.

“It’s my parents’ anniversary,” he admitted once they’d gotten clear of London traffic.

“Your parents?”

“Yes, I do have them. I didn’t spring forth from the abyss, no matter what Donovan might have you think.”

“Very funny,” she said, though her sardonic tone was entirely ruined by her smile.

“It’s their anniversary and they’re making a big deal. Rented out the hall in the village, invited all sorts of people.”

“Am I your emotional support sidekick?” Molly asked, grinning at him. “Did John tell you to get stuffed?”

“Didn’t tell John,” Sherlock said, looking away from the road so that he could roll his eyes at her properly. “Mycroft may have mentioned you. And now my parents want to meet you. Have wanted to meet you for a while, actually, but I’ve run out of excuses and they wouldn't hear them anyway now that they know both their sons are aware of your existence. And it’s their anniversary, so somehow that means something, I have to do what they want because it’s their anniversary. Like you have to eat the cake because it’s your birthday.”

“You’ve talked about me to your parents?”

“You help with cases.”

"And your brother talked about me to your parents?"

"I didn't hear it, myself, but Mummy mentioned you and Mycroft both in the same sentence. So." Sherlock shrugged like that explained everything. “And I apologize in advance because they are truly tedious. It’s going to be a very long afternoon.”

“Has John met your parents?”

“Nope.”

* * *

His parents lived in the sort of country village people put on postcards. Beautiful. Quaint. Charming.

“Oh thank God,” Mycroft said when they got out of the car. He was standing at the edge of the parking lot, smoking. “I thought you’d never get here.”

“Don’t you track my mobile?” Sherlock asked snidely.

“Only on special occasions,” Mycroft shot back, dropping the butt of his cigarette and smudging it out with his toe. “Good morning, Molly.”

“Hello, Mycroft.”

“Good grief,” Sherlock said, scowling. “The two of you sound almost _fond_ of each other. It’s sickening.”

“Myc, are you—Oh! Sherlock, hello!” a woman called from the doorway. Sherlock had her eyes.

“Mummy,” Sherlock said in greeting, obligingly ducking down so that she could kiss his cheek hello.

“And you must be Dr. Hooper,” Mrs. Holmes said, beaming. “It’s wonderful to meet you.”

“Thank you,” Molly said, and would’ve said more, but they were all quickly bustled inside.

She half expected to be asked to help set up, since they seemed to be a bit early, but that was apparently something that Holmeses didn’t do. The rented hall was done up in white lacy bunting and photos of the Holmes family throughout the years. She grinned at Sherlock, the smile growing on her face when she watched him realize she was _absolutely_ going to use the camera in her mobile to take pictures of his family photos to show John. (And Greg. And Meena. And possibly Donovan, if he was annoying.)

They turned out not to be so incredibly early, though. She’d barely been introduced to Mr. Holmes—they were Siger and Marietta Holmes, both retired; he’d once been a concert cellist, and she’d taught some form of advanced mathematics at Cambridge—when the extended family began to arrive. And it was _extensive_.

Mr. Holmes was one of eight. Mrs. Holmes was one of three. Just about all of them had married and had children. It was more than a bit boggling to look around are see Sherlock as a part of it—he always seemed so solitary, and yet here was an enormous rented party hall full of people who put up with him with a grudging sort of cheerfulness.

Apparently, it was a Holmes tradition to name everybody the same and go by middle names. Molly had always thought Sherlock and Mycroft were just so incredibly _Sherlock_ and _Mycroft_ that it had been impossible to call them William and Alexander. (Though she hadn’t known Mycroft’s first name before.)

Sherlock had five first cousins named William. And his father’s oldest brother was William (his father was the eldest, and William was the next of the siblings). And there were nine second cousins named William.

The best part about it was that it was a family in-joke. Whenever another one would arrive, all the Williams or all the Alexanders (or all the Jessicas, all the Davids, all the Emilys) would get up and greet each other, shake hands, call each other William rather than what they went by. It was absolutely delightful.

The eldest of the Williams was Sherlock’s Uncle Max (William Maxwell Ignatius Holmes), who was somewhere in his mid-seventies and looked like somebody had plugged a picture of Mycroft into one of those online aging software things. The youngest was an eighteen-month-old whose father was also a William, and dutifully brought him along each time to have his little handshake.

The Rutherford side—Mrs. Holmes’s relatives—seemed used to this, simply smiling and watching each new spectacle.

“I have begun to understand why you didn’t invite John,” Molly said when the rush of arrivals seemed to have slowed to a trickle. “William Sherlock.”

His aunts, his grandfather, one of his cousins (Kathleen, “Cousin Kath”) and Kath’s daughter (Ainsley, 16) all called him William Sherlock.

“Don’t you start,” he said. “And if anybody asks, he’s not here because he had to work at the surgery. My parents are dead set on meeting him, too.”

“Well, he really _is_ working today.” Molly shrugged.

His extended family seemed only vaguely aware of what Sherlock did for a living. Ainsley’s little brother Basil was the only one aware of John’s blog, though he’d started sharing it around once the topic came up. Molly giggled into her mimosa watching Mycroft try to explain to Great Uncle David Abner how to find the website on his mobile.

Sherlock had two Uncle Archies, one from each side. Uncle Archie Holmes was a sweet older man who looked a bit like should run a bookstore, going off his bow tie and reading glasses, but she was told he was basically a hermit out on some old Holmes property in the wilds of Northumberland. Uncle Archie Rutherford was Mrs. Holmes’s elder brother, and he was not sweet; he looked a bit like what she imagined Mycroft might look like if he made it his life’s goal to emulate a nefarious bat or something.

Molly wasn’t really sure what she was doing there. They were all very nice, and Mr. and Mrs. Holmes seemed very glad to meet her, but she still wasn’t sure why Sherlock hadn’t put them off. (He was very good at putting them off.)

After mimosas and nibbles, there was luncheon. There were toasts all through the meal. Many, many toasts.

Sherlock’s family was remarkably ordinary. Or at least as ordinary as a bunch of posh people could be. It was all very familial in a public school kind of way.

Mycroft and Sherlock looked like they were both due to have their molars extracted before they’d even sat down to eat. Molly couldn’t help but laugh, and Mrs. Holmes seemed to find it very charming.

After lunch, Mr. Holmes and Sherlock played a duet. It was beautiful. (She hadn’t even noticed he’d brought his violin along.) Sherlock was doing his best to look put-upon, but Molly knew him well enough to see that he enjoyed it.

After the music, Mycroft challenged her to a game of chess. Then two more when she beat him.

“Oh, you are a _delight_ ,” Mrs. Holmes said, so earnestly that Molly could only smile.

Mycroft dragged Sherlock outside to have another sulking smoke. They left her with a whole flock of their female cousins, none of whom had any idea what to say once she’d answered their questions about her career.

“Okay,” Molly said when it was just her and Sherlock. She was in the middle of walloping him at chess as well, which seemed to suit him just fine. “Is this the part where you lot tie me up in the basement because you’re going to hunt me for sport later? Check.”

“What?”

“The bishop just there.”

“No, I know, the bishop—” He flapped a dismissive hand at her and sacrificed his last knight to get out of check. “The hunting for sport bit.”

“We really need to work on your pop culture references, William Sherlock,” she told him.

“Are you ever going to let that go?” he asked.

“Probably not,” she said, chewing on her lip and hoping he would think it was because she was trying not to laugh at him rather than because he was about to make a mistake that would let her put him in checkmate in two moves.

“Check,” he said, and Molly gave up on the lip-chewing to smile at him and move her queen into position.

“Mate.”

“Damn,” Sherlock said, but he was smiling.

“And you’ve never played any tournaments or ranked matches,” Mycroft said from the doorway, shaking his head.

“No. Just against my granddad,” she said, repeating what she’d told him earlier. “He was a grandmaster, and he had no clue what to do with children. So we played chess.”

Ellie had always hated the chess. He’d tried to teach them both so that they could amuse themselves with the game while he did other things, but Ellie had had no interest. Luckily, she’d been the sort of child who’d loved paging through old atlases and encyclopedias, so she was fairly good with self-entertaining while Molly and their granddad played chess.

“Didn’t you want to, I don’t know, _play_? With children?” Mycroft asked.

“Did _you_ play with the other children?” Molly asked, trying not to smile at him because he would think she was teasing him.

“Well, Mycroft was exceptional, of course. Never one to _play_ ,” Sherlock said, smirking. He so enjoyed it when anybody else took part in teasing his brother.

“Of course I _played_ ,” Mycroft said, tipping his chin up ever so slightly. Molly had noticed that he tended to attempt to appear snooty whenever he felt like he was on the back foot. “It’s an important part of childhood development.”

“Are you sure you did it right?” Sherlock asked.

“Oh, shut up. _You_ wanted to be a _pirate_ ,” Mycroft said.

“Still considering it,” Sherlock said without missing a beat.

“Oh, behave,” their Aunt Cecily scolded. “The both of you.”

* * *

“Thank you for today,” she said when they made it back to the car at last. The party was, in fact, still going, but they had the excuse that they needed to get back to London. She’d actually begun to feel almost comfortable surrounded by Holmeses and Rutherfords, but she could tell Sherlock had hit his saturation point. “It was really lovely.”

“You are not allowed to tell John about Cousin Kath,” he said. “Or _pirates_.”

“Your Cousin Kath _is_ horrible,” Molly agreed.

“Worse than Mycroft,” he said.

“Loads.”

The drive slipped by in companionable silence. The sun had begun to set by the time they were getting close, bathing the city in golden dusk. She could practically feel Sherlock unclenching the closer they got.

“Really, Sherlock,” she said when he parked on her street. “Thank you for today.”

“You are welcome to borrow my extensive family whenever you’d like,” he said, surprising her by shutting off the car and following her into her flat. “I’ll CC you on the next all-cousins email Kath sends out.”

“Oh, don’t,” she said, smiling at him.

“I think my favorite part was watching them all try to sort out whether you were my fiancée or Mycroft’s,” he said. He folded his suit coat over the back of one of the armchairs and folded up his shirt sleeves, toed off his shoes. Apparently he was staying.

“No ring,” Molly said, holding up her hand. “And nobody said anything.”

“Of course not. You have to meet the family first, you see. Get the seal of approval.”

“So an unofficial engagement. A trial run at a family gathering.”

“They’re all insane,” he said, sprawling across her couch. Molly went through to the kitchen to make tea. “Especially Uncle Archie.”

“Which Uncle Archie?”

“Does it matter?”

Molly chuckled, clicking off the kettle before it chirped. She brought him tea and curled up on the other end of the couch once he’d sat up so that he could drink his without spilling.

“You don’t talk about your family,” he said, not making eye contact. “You have a sister, right?”

Molly hummed and nodded, sipping her tea to put off answering. Sherlock was looking at her, patient and willing to listen for once. She set her tea down on the low table, fidgeting with it.

“We don’t get on. Never really did,” she said at last. “She lives in Glasgow.”

“Parents? Your own Uncle Archie? Uncle Archie _s_?”

“My parents were each only children. Dad’s parents died before I was born, and Mum’s mum.” She spun her tea so that the handle pointed to the edge of the table just so. “My parents divorced when I was 8. Custody battle dragged on until I was 12. We stayed with our granddad while they were meeting with lawyers or in court and things. Then there was a car crash when I was 14—Mum died, and our older brother Charlie.”

“I’m sorry, Molly,” he said quietly after the briefest moment. She looked up at him, surprised at how quiet he was. He sounded like he really was sorry that she didn’t have a loud, obnoxious mess of a family. It made her smile.

“It is what it is,” she said. “So thank you for today. It was nice to visit your world with parents and a brother and cousins and weird Uncle Archies.”

“You know what happens now,” he said, suddenly smiling at her. A smile that was too big and gleeful to bode well.

“What?”

“Now you’re stuck coming along with me to these things. You survived one without spilling blood.”

“I’ll have to go along with Mycroft to a few as well. Just to keep them guessing.”

Sherlock barked out a surprised laugh, and whatever tension was left in her from the serious turn to the conversation evaporated. It seemed he’d survived the day without spilling blood, too.


	7. the fall

“Here,” Molly said, dropping a trio of folders on Sherlock’s desk. He’d been hunched over, glaring at the comments on John’s latest post. She carried on into the kitchen, her HUMAN TISSUES cooler over her shoulder. “Two truths and a lie, just like before.”

“You don’t need to distract me,” he said, but he closed the laptop and brought the files to his preferred armchair.

Molly ignored him, setting the cooler on the table and snapping on gloves. Mrs. H had texted a biohazard warning after she’d brought him his tea.

“I might have a case for you, too, if you’re looking for something to pass the time,” she said.

“Oh?” he asked without looking up from the folders. She’d been bringing him puzzles as long as she’d brought him body parts—three case files, all done up to look official and unsolved, but one of them was entirely fabricated. He’d look over the cases, solve them, tell her which one was made up. He’d only been wrong once, and that had been the time she’d cheated and given him two lies and a truth.

“Floater,” Molly said. “Suspicious but small potatoes. The Met had to move on when there was no way to ID him.”

“Has the body been claimed?”

“Not yet. Hold expires at the end of the week.”

“I’ll take a look tomorrow,” he said, sitting back and crossing his legs so that he could put one folder on each knee while he read through the third more closely.

Bringing him underdogs was a new thing. John’s blog had gained popularity; it was attracting clients, and high-profile clients at that. It was all lost diamonds and kidnapped high society.

At the root of it, though, Sherlock had chosen to be a consulting detective because it was a way for him to help people. He had trouble connecting with people, had no time for most people, but he cared. It was obnoxious and sweet all at once. So she’d started to show him the cases that fell through the cracks, the ones nobody cared enough to rush to Baker Street (weeping for the press that had begun camping out front) for his help. Everyday people who lived everyday lives and died everyday deaths.

“Murder-suicide but the suicide chickened out. Accidental death—anaphylaxis, but the spouse panicked and tried to make it look like a B&E,” Sherlock said, holding up each folder in turn. “And another accidental death—bookshelf fell on the victim and he was crushed.”

“And which one’s the lie?” she asked, zipping the cooler. Sherlock frowned at her.

“Did you cheat again?”

“No.”

* * *

Sherlock turned up at the end of her shift. She was in her office transcribing her notes, and he _threw_ the door open, _threw_ the folders down on the edge of her desk, and _glared_ at her.

“Hello, Sherlock,” she said without looking up. She was almost done.

When she looked up, he hadn’t moved. He had his arms crossed, and he loomed over her, still glaring.

“You cheated.”

“I did not.”

He clenched his jaw and gave her a hard look, then spun to stalk out of her office.

“Show me this floater,” he said, calling back over his shoulder.

Molly tried not to laugh, following him out to the morgue to get the victim out of cold storage.

They spent the last of her shift going over the corpse. She’d done the autopsy, so she walked him through her findings. She’d collected the police reports from the case, too—the ones she wouldn’t have access to if she didn’t have MI-5 clearance.

He left to do some follow-up on the floater, but he must’ve gone by her office on his way out because the trio of folders he’d left on the corner of her desk were gone as well.

* * *

She brought him three more sets of two truths and a lie over the course of the week. He figured them all out, of course. Even that first trio that had seemed so promising.

He was acting very strangely, though. More strangely than normal. For him.

His work was flourishing. He had more cases than he knew what to do with. John had quit his clinic position and was acting as Sherlock’s assistant full time. The blog was more popular than ever.

Sherlock didn’t really seem to know what to do with the attention. He loved the cases, thrived on the variety of them brought in by his growing popularity. It was when the newspapers wanted him to pose for pictures at the conclusion of the things that he got uncomfortable.

And the gifts!

Molly had found a YouTube playlist of his reaction to the gifts, and she watched it whenever she needed a smile. Or whenever she was annoyed at Sherlock and wanted to watch him squirm.

They all gave him cufflinks or tie pins or that sort of thing, and he didn’t wear either. Each time, he took the gift and told John what it was (too softly for the cameras to catch, but it was clear enough what was happening), then John would tell him to mind his manners. And then he would stare uncomfortably in the general direction of the camera until it was all over.

Greg got him a deerstalker. He _hated_ the deerstalker.

He actually had the jewels taken from one of the sets of cufflinks and had them reset as earrings. Which he gave to her.

He didn’t pop round to her flat the way he’d used to, but he turned up at the morgue more often than ever. He and John were having a ridiculously good time with the cases and just generally enjoying one another’s company. It had been the single longest span of time since she’d gotten to know him that Mycroft hadn’t sent her some alert about a danger night. But Molly couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

* * *

And then… Jim Moriarty.

She’d had a lunch date planned, too.

At first, it was obnoxious. She’d had plans, and Sherlock had interrupted them. All she’d ended up with for lunch was a bag of crisps. But there was an odd desperation in Sherlock—and, yes, there were missing kids and that was enough to make anybody desperate, but it was something else.

“You’re a bit like my dad,” she said. She hadn’t meant to say it, but she’d finally put her finger on what she’d been trying to recognize all afternoon. “He’s dead. Oh, sorry—”

“Molly, please don’t feel the need to make conversation,” he said, not looking up from the microscope. “It’s really not your area.”

“When he was dying, he was always cheerful. He was lovely. Except when he though no one could see.” She’d set aside her work so she could look at him properly, but he still wouldn’t look up from the microscope. “I saw him once. He looked sad.”

“Molly…” A warning tone. Warning her off. Asking for distance.

“You look sad,” she said, not backing down. Not this time. “When you think he can’t see you.”

He finally looked up. First he looked to John, still busy across the room, and then he finally turned to her.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “And don’t just say you are. Because I know what that means. Looking sad when you think no one can see you.”

“You can see me.”

“I don’t count.” He’d turned his focus on her and she finally had to look away. She really hadn’t thought he’d acknowledge anything. “What I’m trying to say is that if there’s anything I can do, anything you need, anything at all, you can have me. No, I just mean… I mean… If there’s anything you need. It’s fine.”

“But what could I need from you?”

“Nothing. I don’t know.”

It was a strangely final sort of conversation. Detached.

“But you could probably say thank you, actually,” she said.

“Thank you,” he said, parroting it back to her because he could have good manners when he wanted to rather than because he agreed there was a reason he should be thanking her.

“I’m just going to go and get some crisps. Do you want anything?” She suddenly wanted to be anywhere else but in the lab with him. “It’s okay. I know you don’t.”

“Well, actually, maybe I’ll—”

“I know you don’t.”

She went down the hall, but by the time she got to the vending machine she didn’t want to eat anything. When she got back to the lab, they were gone.

* * *

Her shift dragged by. After the rush of her lunch break spent not eating lunch, the usual string of tests and lab work seemed almost tedious.

He gave her a bloody heart attack when she was finally ready to leave, though. Standing there in the dark. The gossip had been that he’d been arrested, or there was an order for his arrest, or possibly that he’d gone on the lam. Standing there in the dark was _not_ where she’d expected to find him.

“You were wrong, you know. You do count,” he said. “You’ve always counted and I’ve always trusted you. But you were right. I’m not okay.”

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

_Drugs_. It was her first thought, and she hated it. He’d been clean for quite the stretch of time, but she’d probably jinxed it by thinking about it. All she could think was that all the drama with Jim had pushed him to the edge, that he wanted to escape into some drug-fueled high…

“Molly, I think I’m going to die.”

“What do you need?”

“If I wasn’t everything that you think I am, everything that I think I am, would you still want to help me?”

“What do you need?”

“You.”

_Well at least it’s not drugs_.

“Be more specific?” she asked, trembling between the fraught moment before and a sudden urge to laugh. If everything wasn’t such a mess and he was slightly more ordinary of a person, she would’ve assumed he was looking to get a leg over.

She could see the exact moment that thought crossed his mind as well. He rolled his eyes, dipped down to kiss her cheek, then stalked away to sit on one of the high stools.

“We’re going to need coffee,” he said.

* * *

The worst part was John.

She’d had the night to get used to the plan. The many plans. Waiting for communication from Mycroft, from Sherlock, from various secret service operatives.

The body was in the morgue, ready to go. Ready to be damaged however it needed to be to match whichever story they needed to match.

Sherlock was brought in on a gurney. He was a mess, covered in the blood she’d procured illegally.

He jumped up the moment the doors were closed. Not eagerly, not celebrating a heist halfway to pulled-off, just hurrying. He stripped, and Molly folded his clothes into a stack to go into an evidence bag once he was gone. She handed him scrubs, helped him wipe enough of the blood off his face and neck so that it wasn’t noticeable if he hid his hair in a bouffant cap.

She took samples and swabs. Blood, saliva, the usual. She’d do the autopsy on the doppelgänger—the man Jim had hired to traumatize the Buhl kids—later, and run the usual tests on the samples that had actually come from Sherlock.

“Send somebody to collect the body off the roof,” Sherlock said when she’d finished collecting her samples.

“Body?”

“Moriarty,” Sherlock said, his focus was on his reflection, though, making sure his hair was hidden in the cap.

“Wait. Jim—Moriarty’s on the roof? His body?” she asked, holding out a surgical mask.

“Put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger,” Sherlock said. He put the mask on and pulled it down under his chin. With his hair hidden, dressed in the usual outfit, he almost looked like a surgeon stepped out of a long procedure. “I always miss something.”

“What did you miss?”

“I didn’t expect him to kill himself,” Sherlock said, looking at her properly for the first time since he’d been brought in. She didn’t know what to say, though, and a moment later he’d left the morgue.

He was gone, the MI-5 agents with him, when John arrived.

By all rights, he shouldn’t have had access. In fact, it was only a matter of time before somebody told her she’d need to take a few days off. Conflict of interest. Not to mention all the noise about him being a fraud, and she’d been the one to work with him most often, give him free access to hospital facilities. And cadavers.

No mention that all of that had been cleared by paperwork beforehand. He was a consultant. He had credentials. It had all been approved.

INCOMING. The text came from an unlisted number and was accompanied by a still capture from one of the security cameras in the hospital elevators. John on his way to her.

Molly looked down at the body—with Sherlock’s clothes in evidence bags right next to it and the brutal damage to the head, it would pass; John was too upset to look for moles or old track mark scars that would give it all away—and pulled the sheet up over the face. It would be better for all of them if John didn’t see the body.

She snapped off her gloves and hurried out into the hall to intercept him. She’d pretend to be fleeing the morgue to get away from Sherlock’s body, stepping into the hall for a cry. When she saw John, it wasn’t hard to work up the tears.

“Is he in there?” John asked like he was half-hoping to be told they had him in surgery.

“You know he is,” Molly said, wrapping her arms around herself and leaning against the wall. John stopped in front of her, but she couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t watch him try to process it.

“Why. _Why_ would he do that.”

“I don’t—”

“He can’t have really. He had arranged something.”

“John—” she started, but her throat closed up. She fished a tissue out of her pocket and wiped at her nose.

“I got a call,” John said. “They told me Mrs. Hudson had been shot.”

“Oh my god, is she okay?” Had that been part of the plan? If it had, Molly hadn’t heard about it.

“She’s fine. It was a lie. A ruse. Something to draw me away so he could… So he could go _up there_ and—”

He was pacing, limping as he went, hand clenching and unclenching.

And then he stopped, all the anger draining away. He sat abruptly, leaning back against the wall. He pressed his hands to his face and let the tears fall.

* * *

Later, after Molly had finished with Sherlock’s doppelgänger, she got into the usual nondescript black car and was taken to one of the usual bunkers. There was a portrait of Churchill on the wall in the elevator bay, and for some reason it struck her as the oddest thing.

Moriarty had been collected from the roof. Two soldiers helped her manipulate the body as she needed to collect samples and take all the proper evidence photos—their uniforms said they were Krieg and Watts, and they’d helped her before; they both seemed to have some sort of medical training, but they barely spoke so she’d never asked them about their day jobs, if they had that sort of thing.

She was exhausted when it was done. Physically, mentally, emotionally.

She was sitting on the lab stool, looking across the room at the sheet-covered form of a man she’d gone on a few mediocre dates with, when Sherlock came in. He’d had a shower and a haircut—it was shorter than she’d ever see in, all the curl gone—and he looked as worn out as she felt.

“I’ll be staying at yours for a few days,” he said. He looked her, then walked over to pull the sheet away from Moriarty’s face. His back was to her, so she couldn’t see his expression; she couldn’t even begin to guess what he was thinking.

“Not some officially-sanctioned hidey hole?” Molly asked after a moment, gathering herself.

“Hm?”

“Staying at mine rather than a safe house or something?”

“Yours is a safe house.” He put the sheet back in place and turned to face her, eyebrows drawn together like he wasn’t sure she was handling the events of the day especially well. She scowled at him.

“Is it officially? Is there some sort of paperwork for that sort of distinction?” She was only half sarcastic. Sherlock rolled his eyes.

“Technically, Mycroft has your place on a list of my bolt holes. I wasn’t an active agent until an hour ago, so technically I don’t have access to government safe houses.”

“Until an hour ago?”

“This is the perfect opportunity to track down the network,” he said. His eyes flashed, excited by the new intrigue, but there was a weight to him. He was trying to focus on the game to keep himself from thinking about everything he’d be leaving behind. “Unravel it.”

* * *

SUICIDE OF FAKE GENIUS

It was all over the papers. All anybody would talk about.

Molly had been put on leave for two weeks while they reviewed things at Bart’s. Greg had been suspended for the same. They went out and got smashed drunk, exchanging stories like it was some sort of memorial.

John wouldn’t answer his phone. Wouldn’t answer the door. Wouldn’t _talk_ to anybody. Mrs. Hudson said he just sat in the flat, barely ate.

Meanwhile, Sherlock had vanished. He’d spent two days at her flat, constantly pacing, plotting. She cleaned like she’d had a breakup. They got into a screaming match over her vacuuming—him saying it was interrupting his thinking, her saying that she didn’t give a damn. It had ended against the sitting room wall with his cock buried inside her.

That was a normal, healthy reaction to things, she was sure.


	8. the baby that wasn’t

Molly had had exactly one pregnancy scare with Sherlock. She’d been two days late on her period; he’d realized it before she had. He’d arrived at her flat with a bag full of pregnancy tests, then paced and fretted while she peed on them. (All negative, and her period had started the following evening.)

They were always careful. Molly had been on birth control since uni, and they used condoms.

But.

And yet.

He’d disappeared into the wider world to dismantle Moriarty’s network, and three weeks later Molly had bought her own bag full of pregnancy tests. She’d done her own pacing and fretting.

Positive, this time.

“Shit,” Molly said. She’d been saying that a lot.

John still wasn’t responding to any of her calls or texts. She had gone back to work, but most of her coworkers spent a lot of time giving her the side-eye. She _hated_ to sit around fretting about things, but she couldn’t quite focus on anything else. Not even cleaning.

There were things she should do. The practical side of her liked that. Things to check off a list. Tasks to complete. Things to focus on rather than panic about Sherlock, about a baby, about Sherlock’s baby in particular.

She had no way to contact him directly. She could go through official channels—make an official request that would show up on all sorts of reports and it would probably be at least a month before he was actually put in touch with her. She could just call Mycroft, of course, but Sherlock had always taken a sort of gleeful approach to keeping things secret from him.

She could schedule an appointment with a doctor.

She had half a mind to call up John Watson and tell him everything. He was a doctor. Not in any way specialized in childbirth, but he was a good doctor. More importantly, he was a good friend. He deserved to know about Sherlock…

She’d have to leave it in a voicemail, though, since he wouldn’t answer. And that would probably get her disappeared by one of those nice nameless fellows who picked her up for all those autopsies in bunkers.

Molly scrubbed her hands over her face, pushing away the temptation of telling John. He was probably the first real, simple, true friend Sherlock had let himself make, and walking away had been the hardest thing she’d ever watched him force himself to do.

“Okay,” she said. “Shit.”

She made the appointment. She went to the appointment.

Not quite a week later, she miscarried. She woke to cramps, a bed red with blood, and a deep ache that wasn’t quite physical.

Her mobile rang, and she knew it was Ellie without looking at the screen. There was no such thing as twin telepathy, except there was. They weren’t especially close and it didn’t happen often—the last time had been the day Ellie’s husband had died—but it did happen.

“What’s wrong?” Ellie asked before Molly could so much as say ‘hello.’

“I lost the baby,” she said. Her voice was hollow. She felt like she’d been carved out.

“Oh, Molly,” Ellie said.

Molly sobbed wetly, pushing herself up and getting off the bed. She was a mess. The sheets were a mess. It looked like a murder, and that thought only made her cry harder.

“Do you have somebody there with you?” Ellie asked—somehow Molly still had her phone pressed to her ear. “Do you need me to come to London? What can I do?”

Molly was a doctor. She knew how miscarriages worked. She knew that, statistically, most miscarriages happened in the first trimester. She knew it was usually because something hadn’t been right—chromosomal problems, placental problems—but it _felt_ like she’d _lost_ it.

She hadn’t even decided how she’d felt about it—about a baby, about Sherlock’s baby, about _her own_ baby.

“No,” Molly said, her mind catching up to the question her sister had asked. “No, nobody’s with me.”

She put the call on speaker and began stripping the sheets off the bed, stripping off her pajamas, putting it all in the bathtub to soak.

“Molly, do you need me to come to London? I can. I absolutely can,” Ellie said. “I can be there by tonight.”

“No,” she said, standing there naked in her bathroom and watching the water in the tub slowly go pink. “I’ll… I should talk to my doctor. Get checked out.”

She wasn’t even bleeding anymore. Not really.

She sniffled, wiped at the fresh tears on her cheeks. Her nose was running like a pipe.

“I’m sorry this happened, Moll,” Ellie said quietly. “I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you for calling me,” Molly said. She took a few deep breaths and went back into the bedroom, took one of Sherlock’s t-shirts out of the drawer, and made her way downstairs to the other bathroom.

“I don’t like that there’s nobody with you,” Ellie said after a bit. Molly hadn’t ended the call, so her sister had sat on the other end of the call listening as the tub filled with steaming water. “Is there anybody you can call? Anybody you want me to call?”

Molly set the mobile on the sink, close enough they’d be able to hear each other but far enough away she didn’t have to worry about knocking it into the tub, and stepped into the water. It was a touch too hot to be comfortable, but that had been what she was aiming for.

“What about your—the father?”

“Not my boyfriend,” Molly said, because she knew that’s what Ellie had been about to say. “I don’t have a boyfriend. Haven’t in ages.”

“What about him, then? The father.”

“Friends with benefits kind of thing. Really sucks. I don’t recommend it.” She’d made it to seated in the tub. The hot water was helping sooth the cramping—or at least distracting her from it because it was bloody _hot_. “I’d only just found out about the baby. Really. If this had happened any sooner, I would’ve thought it was just the period from hell.”

She was crying again.

“What can I do?” Ellie asked, and Molly realized her sister was crying, too.

“You did it already. Thank you, Ellie, really. Thanks for calling.” Molly turned the water on, adding a bit more lukewarm water to cool things to a more reasonable temperature. “I should let you go. I have to get somebody to cover my shift. Call my doctor.”

“Okay,” Ellie said hesitantly. “I’m going to call you again in an hour, okay?”

“Okay.”

Molly rung off without saying goodbye.

She turned off the tap and sat in the tub for a bit, soaking, feeling miserable. She didn’t want to wash and dress and get on with things, but she did. She took the soap off its little shelf and lathered up, washing well, then stood and pulled the plug. Once most of the water had drained away, she turned on the shower head and rinsed the soap off of her, washed her face.

When she stepped out of the tub, she put on the pants and Sherlock’s shirt she’d brought down with her, wondering if it was masochistic to deliberately choose something that smelled like him when he was so far away.

_God, he doesn’t even know what he lost this morning_ , she thought, squeezing her eyes shut tight to try to keep the tears at bay. 

She put the kettle on. Made her calls.

She would’ve liked to curl up on the sofa in Sherlock’s shirt and never move, but she had to get dressed and get over to her doctor’s office; there was an opening in the schedule and she’d have to hurry to make it. It gave her something to focus on.

Ellie called her back when she was getting out of the cab.

“I miss Mum,” Molly said rather than ‘hello.’

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come to London?” Ellie asked. “I don’t like that you’re by yourself.”

“I’ll be okay,” Molly said, lingering outside the office. She had a few minutes before her appointment, and she didn’t want to have this conversation in the waiting room. “I just got to my doctor’s. I’ll be… okay.”

“If you say so,” Ellie said reluctantly. “But, really, Molly. If you change your mind, I can be there in just a few hours. Glasgow’s not that far.”

“Thank you.”

* * *

Molly wasn’t all that surprised when there was a conspicuously anonymous car waiting for her when she left the office. She’d been given a clean bill of health, a little stack of pamphlets for support groups, a therapist’s number. All sorts of _resources_. And _condolences_.

She really, really just wanted to curl up on her couch with her cat and be sad for the rest of the day.

“I can’t today,” she told the driver when he walked around the car to hold the door for her. “I just… I can’t.”

“Molly,” Mycroft said, leaning forward a bit inside the car so that she could see him through the open door. “Please.”

Molly got in the car. She crossed her arms over herself and frowned at Mycroft. He looked her over in that way that he and Sherlock looked at people, _deducing_. The car pulled into traffic and Mycroft sat back a bit, his fingers tense on the curved handle of his umbrella.

“Did he know?” Mycroft asked quietly. Molly forced the frown to stay in place on her face so that she didn’t start crying again.

“No,” she said. She didn’t ask him how he knew, how long he’d known.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m not great,” she said sharply. “No physical damage, if that’s what you’re asking. Not that it’s _any_ of your business.”

“Do you want… That is to say, if you’d like not to be alone—”

“It’s okay, Mycroft, you don’t have to—”

He startled her by lifting one hand and reaching toward her like he was going to squeeze her knee, but he stopped just shy of actually touching her and sat back again. He closed his eyes and took a breath before looking at her again.

“I can’t recall him,” Mycroft said. “He’s deep undercover. I can’t bring him back to you.”

“You don’t have to,” she repeated. “It wasn’t planned. He didn’t know about it. _I_ barely knew about it.”

“If there’s anything I can do, anything you need…”

“Honestly,” Molly said, willing herself to unclench a bit, “I just want to go home. Have a cup of tea. Sit on my couch.”

“Would you like to get out of London? Our parents live in a little village. It’s… peaceful?”

Molly smiled a watery smile, brushing away a new rush of tears. It was ridiculously sweet how Sherlock and Mycroft both put on a fantastic show of perpetual annoyance where their parents were concerned, but when they needed comforting, their first stop was their parents’ cottage.

“Thank you,” she said, “but no. I wouldn’t be very good company right now.”

“If you change your mind…”

* * *

She took the week off. She cried for days.

Ellie didn’t call again. John and Mrs. Hudson didn’t know. Greg called after he’d stopped in at Bart’s on a case and been told she was out sick. Mycroft had dinner delivered to her every night until she went back to work, then for another week after that.

* * *

Molly had been back at work for a month when Sherlock turned up. He walked into her flat like he lived there—she hadn’t even been aware that he still had his key.

“Um. Hi,” she said. She’d been making a pot of tea since the last one had gone cold before she’d had any of it.

His hair was different. It was even shorter than when he’d left and brushed back from his face. He was wearing glasses, squarish black frames. He was wearing jeans that were a centimeter or so too short for his long legs, and a dark t-shirt that fit him across the shoulders but was too baggy around the waist. She never would’ve noticed how poorly his clothes fit if she hadn’t been so used to seeing him in tailored suits. He looked like a normal guy who bought things off the rack like normal guys did.

“Hello,” he said, sounding tired.

“Are you alright?” She had no idea where he’d gone. She’d done her best not to worry about him, because there was no point to it—worrying wouldn’t make him any safer.

“Jet lagged.” He shrugged. His eyes narrowed then, sweeping over her and the flat. “And you?”

“I’m fine.” She didn’t want to tell him about the baby. About the miscarriage. About any of it. Part of her wanted to—it had been his baby, too; he’d lost something as well. He was Sherlock Holmes, though, so it probably wouldn’t hit him the way it had her, and she absolutely didn’t want to be mad at him about a lack of emotional reaction when he’d been perfectly clear from the start that that was outside the realm of reasonable expectations. (Or however he had put it.)

“You’re lying.”

“What?” She was suddenly furious with him. How _dare_ he—

“You were pregnant.”

“How did you…?”

“Two books on the shelf, bought rather than borrowed. You put them by the poetry you never read but just can’t seem to get rid of, so you don’t need them anymore.”

She nodded, more to acknowledge that he’d been right about the books than anything else. She didn’t know what to say. The anger had gone out of her the moment he wasn’t snide about her not wanting to get rid of the books.

“And you’re sad,” he said, stepping around the kitchen island to stand closer to her. He didn’t try to hug her, but he did put a bit of hair behind her ear. It was as close to emotional support as he’d ever given.

“Hormones,” she said.

“You don’t need to make excuses for being sad about a miscarriage,” he said softly. “Not even to me.”

“Sherlock—”

“I know I’m an arse, but I’m not so bad as that, am I?”

That set her off, and she was crying again. 

He held her while she cried, rocking her gently, stroking her hair and her back. Being kind to her.

“What are you doing back here?” she asked when she’d cried herself out. They were still standing in the kitchen.

“Laying low for the weekend,” he said. He’d let her pull back from him, but he hadn’t stopped the soothing motions. He held her wrist, thumb tracing a little circle at her pulse point. “I was in Portugal, and now I’m here to make sure nothing changes on this end before I… move on to the next.”

“You’re welcome to stay, of course,” she said, because he was. “It’s just… I’m not really up for sex at the moment, Sherlock.”

“I just need sleep.”

* * *

She woke and he was gone, but the sheets on his side of the bed were warm. It was the sort of night that Molly didn’t feel much like sleeping anyway, so she wrapped her dressing gown around her and went downstairs.

He was there, sitting cross-legged in front of her bookcase with the pregnancy book closed in his lap. He looked her way when she entered the room, but his eyes didn’t focus on her.

She sat next to him, facing him, thigh to thigh, and took the book. She opened it to the appropriate page and held it out to him.

“I was just past the five-week mark, best guess,” she said.

He nodded and took the book, eyes scanning the page.

“I went to a grief group a few times,” she told him, not exactly sure why.

He was obviously more affected than she’d thought, though. He had that look on his face like when he’d realized Martha Marie Lennox was a child, like he wanted to bring vengeance down on something. He also looked helpless, and she’d guess that was because he knew enough to know that that’s not always how things work.

“There were a couple other women who’d had miscarriages, a few who’d had stillbirths. Mostly it was couples who had lost babies or toddlers…” She shrugged. “Mostly it didn’t feel right. The—ours was a collection of cells. The group leader kept talking about how picking a name could help with the… mourning. A name, a grave. I hadn’t even told anyone.”

“Do you want a grave?” he asked quietly, looking her directly in the eye for the first time. It was dark, but she could tell he’d been crying. “There’s a family plot. We’d have to—Mycroft would figure out…”

“He already did,” she said, looking down at her hands, fidgeting with her cuticles. “He was waiting with a car when I left my checkup after… after it happened.”

“He didn’t say anything.” He sounded surprised.

“He was sad. I don’t think he realized we were… At least not until the pregnancy was in my file.”

“Nosey.”

“Yes. But he also had dinner brought to me every day for two weeks.”

Sherlock didn’t have anything to say to that. He looked down at the book in his lap again, face inscrutable.

“We can have a gravestone placed if you’d like,” she said quietly. One thing she’d learned from the grief group was that everybody processed a loss differently. She’d needed time alone. Others from the group had surrounded themselves with friends and family. Others had filled their time with work. Sherlock was unpredictable when it came to emotions to begin with; she couldn’t guess how to help him. “We can do whatever you’d like. It was your baby, too.”

Molly couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but she sat there with him and waited. Her living room was dark and quiet, even the street noise muted so late.

After a long moment, Sherlock closed the book and put it back on the shelf where he’d found it.

“How do people live like this?” he asked, staring at the books. “Emotional. _Raw_.”

_Oh_.

Molly reached over and took his hand, twining their fingers together and resting them on his knee.

“I took a week off work to cry about it. And I cleaned my flat like I’d had the breakup to end all breakups,” she said. He’d moved his gaze from the books to her face, drinking her in like she was laying down some sort of Word of Law where emotions were concerned. “I tried group therapy, but it only made me feel like I didn’t deserve to be as sad as the others did.”

“I’m… I didn’t know I could feel like this.”

“I didn’t know I could either,” Molly said, squeezing his hand. She looked down at their linked hands. “I hadn’t decided how I felt about it. I didn’t know I wanted it until I’d lost it.”

“Wanted it?”

“The baby. _A_ baby. Children at all.” She shrugged, risked a glance at his face then looked back down at their hands when he was still watching her so intensely. “I never much thought about it when I was younger, and now I’m closer to forty than to thirty and it just didn’t seem to be in the cards. Can’t say I’ve had much interest in doing the traditional thing—getting married, going off to the suburbs. Not my life, you know?”

“I didn’t know I wanted it either,” he said very softly after he’d stared at her for another minute. He looked like he was reshuffling everything he knew about her in that mind palace of his. (Maybe everything he knew about himself, too.) He cleared his throat like he hadn’t meant to say that out loud, squeezing her hand before letting her go and standing up. “I’d be a horrible father, though.”

“Nah, you wouldn’t,” she said, tipping her head back to look at him from her spot on the floor. She couldn’t help but smile. “You’d be great. Excellent help with homework, science experiments on the weekends. And you’d be great for the cautionary tale on why not to do drugs.”

He laughed. It sounded like she’d startled it out of him. It ended in a tense whining sort of sound, like it was all he could do to keep the laugh from turning into a sob.

“You’d be the best mum,” he said, holding his hands out for her to hoist her off the floor. “You’re like sunshine.”

“I don’t know what that means,” she said, wrinkling her nose as she let him pull her to her feet.

“You’re just… lovely,” he said, shrugging. He still looked helpless, adrift. And, yes, raw. “You’re competent at the sorts of things mums need to do. You know CPR.”

“Is that a requirement these days?” she asked. “CPR?”

He surprised her by leaning in and kissing her. It wasn’t a leading-into-sex sort of kiss or a chaste peck on the cheek, but a longtime lovers sort of kiss. Instead of pulling away when the kiss ended, he pulled her to his chest and wrapped his arms around her. Without having to think about it, she hugged him back.

“This is very much not my area,” he said, voice muffled by her hair.

“Build it a room in your mind palace,” she told him. “Visit it when you need to. Close it away when you need to too.”

“You are very wise.”

“I’ve been seeing a therapist.”

“They told you to build a mind palace?” he pulled away just far enough that he could look down into her face, incredulous.

“No,” she said, smiling a wobbly sort of smile at him. “That part I came up with just for you.”


	9. encrypted calls from the Holmes boys

Years ago, her mobile had been replaced by a mobile that looked exactly like any other smartphone she’d ever had, but it was encrypted and souped-up and generally a bit spook-ish. When it trilled a particular ringtone, she had to make her excuses and go meet a car. (Usually, the cars just showed up; she’d only been summoned via ringtone twice.)

It trilled that incoming-call-on-an-encrypted-line alert, and Molly jerked awake.

“Hello?”

“Molly, I’ve sent a car,” Mycroft said. There was something in his voice that sent a cold jolt of fear to her gut. He’d never been the one to call her directly before, either.

“What’s happened?”

“Sherlock was stabbed. He’s in surgery.”

“Oh, God,” Molly said. She’d already thrown off the covers, grabbing for the trousers she’d worn the day before and a jumper.

“The car is out front. Your usual driver.” He rung off.

She hadn’t realized she had a usual driver, but it didn’t surprise her. If she hadn’t been so busy fretting about Sherlock, she might’ve asked the man’s name; if he had been assigned to her, it was the least she could do to learn his name.

The trip across London had never taken so long, which was surprising because they’d used the flashing lights and everything.

She was dropped at Mycroft’s townhouse, which sent her into a cold sweat. Why not a hospital? Where was he?

Mycroft answered his own door, which only made her worry more. Especially because he had his dressing gown tied over silk pajamas, and his hair was a mess straight off a pillow.

“What’s happened?” Molly asked, not bothering to say hello. “Why aren’t we at a hospital?”

“He is not in the country,” Mycroft said, that usual disdainful tone entirely supplanted by an anxious brother too tired and worried to hide familial love like he normally did. He gestured for her to follow him into the house.

“He was stabbed?” she asked when Mycroft didn’t say anything further. “Where is he? Where was he stabbed?”

“Our latest intelligence—and his latest reports—placed him outside Vienna,” Mycroft said. “But he turned up not quite an hour ago at our embassy in Morocco.”

He led the way into what looked like his office or study—big desk and padded chair, bookshelves, decorative busts. The screen mounted to the wall was playing a feed from a white-tiled room. The sound was scratchy and lagged behind the picture. Sherlock lay on his front, the camera focused on his head—he was unconscious, anesthetized, intubated. Surgeons and nurses moved in and out of view, splattered with his blood.

“What would he have been doing in Morocco?” she asked.

“Followed a lead?” Mycroft said, lifting one shoulder in half a shrug. “I have no idea.”

They stood watching for a long time. Frozen. Molly’s legs were shaking and she wanted to sit, but she didn’t want to look away to find a chair.

Her Arabic was rusty, and she wasn’t particularly familiar with the medical terminology, but she could follow what was happening well enough. She assumed Mycroft could as well or whoever had provided the video feed would’ve provided interpretation, or he would’ve asked her.

Sherlock had been stabbed twice in the back. The knife hadn’t hit anything vital, but the second stab had been deep. He’d needed a blood transfusion; the only reason he’d made it to the embassy was that he’d had the sense to leave the knife in place, plugging up that second wound.

“Can I send you to Morocco?” Mycroft asked her once the surgeons had stepped away. Sherlock’s wounds had been tended, his back cleaned and dressed, and the anesthesiologist had stepped in to bring him round again. In a proper hospital, things would’ve been slower, but in an embassy basement the priority had transitioned to debriefing the agent.

“Yes. Please.”

* * *

Molly had never gone anywhere on a chartered plane before, but it was one of those things—like the car and having a “the usual driver”—that Mycroft made sound perfectly normal. In the time it took Molly to get to the airfield, Mycroft had the plane ordered and fueled for her departure, and his PA met her on the tarmac with an overnight bag.

It was a three-hour flight. She tried to nap, but largely failed.

Just before they were due to land, Molly closed herself in the bathroom—still a small airplane stall, though larger than any plane loo she’d been in flying commercially—and changed into one of the outfits Anthea had packed. It was all her size, but nothing in the bag was actually hers. She spent the last moments of the flight wondering if there was a warehouse somewhere full of clothes for spook assistants to throw into overnight bags at a moment’s notice; there weren’t tags on any of it.

They landed at another airfield. Molly was shuffled into a car with little diplomatic flags on it.

She’d never been to Morocco. Rabat, the city was called. It was too dark to see much out the windows, really.

Sherlock had just finished his debriefing (and whatever else the spooks had wanted from him) when she arrived. He was in a hospital bed, stiffly sitting upright propped by an abundance of pillows. They still had him hooked to an IV, and he hadn’t been given a moment to shave or otherwise clean up, but his color was much, much better than it had been on the video feed at Mycroft’s.

“Molly,” he said, blinking at her before his face split into a genuinely surprised smile.

“Hi,” she said, resisting the urge to throw herself at him, smother him in hugs and fussing. She shut the door behind her and hurried to his bedside, sitting next to his hip and holding his nearer hand with both of hers. Probably too tightly, but he didn’t seem to be about to complain. “How are you?”

“Oh, you know. Stabbed.” His smile widened. He was trying for flippant and charming. She squeezed his hand tighter.

“Yes. We watched the surgery over the feed.”

“We?”

“Mycroft had me collected.”

“Hm.” He didn’t seem to know what to do with that information. “And then he rushed you to my bedside?”

“You scared him, Sherlock.”

“Will,” he corrected, glancing at the door. “William Holmes here. Will, if you’d like. You’re a friend, after all.”

“Will,” she said, not quite able to keep from smiling. It seemed entirely too ordinary a name for him. And it reminded her of his parents’ anniversary party and all his uncles and cousins called William.

“Didn’t mean to scare you. Or Mycroft,” he said. “Didn’t mean to get stabbed, either. Things just went along more quickly than expected this last week.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” she said, giving his hand a final squeeze before letting up on her death grip. She took a moment to drop the overnight bag off her shoulder, scooting it under the guest chair next to his bed with her foot. “I’m not here to collect a report for your brother. Just a friendly face. Studies have shown that patients who have friends and family visit them in hospital recover more quickly that those who don’t.”

“You made that up,” he said, smiling a crooked smile.

“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t.” She shrugged. “Mycroft may have to use it in his expenditures report, though.”

“It was a rather emotional reaction, particularly for him,” Sherlock agreed. “Sentiment being the downfall of rationality.”

“Every time,” she said. She tried to smile, but she was thinking about the time spent standing next to Mycroft watching the surgeons close up Sherlock’s wounds. “It was unexpected. Really unexpected. I think he wanted me with him to watch. Moral support. And then he sent me along here to make sure you’re not alone.”

“He’s slipping,” Sherlock said smugly.

“Sorry, Mrs. Holmes,” one of the nurses said, stepping into the room with a timid smile on her face. “I need to check his dressing.”

“Right. Of course,” Molly said, letting go of his hand and jumping up from the bed.

Sherlock was quietly compliant as the nurse lay the bed down flat and helped him roll over. He opted to stay laying on his stomach, the soreness in the wound sites overriding his desire to sit upright.

“Everything is looking really good,” the nurse said. Molly couldn’t tell which of them she was talking to, so she nodded along. “Swelling is coming down well.”

“Thank you,” Molly said because it was apparent Sherlock wasn’t going to say anything. The nurse nodded and recorded her notes on Sherlock’s chart, then let herself out.

“Did you marry my brother while I was away?” Sherlock asked once they were alone. It startled a laugh out of Molly as she maneuvered the visitor’s chair around so that she was in his line of sight in his new position.

“Lady Smallwood decided on a codename for me: the Missus,” Molly said, rolling her eyes. “The embassy was told the Missus was coming. Most seem to have assumed that means I’m your wife rather than a spook.”

“You should really stop calling them— _us_ —spooks,” he grumbled. “Technically, _you’re_ a spook.”

“No. I’m an asset. I don’t do field work.”

“And what do you call this?”

“Nepotism.”

He laughed, then hissed when the movement jarred his stitches.

“Are you staying?” he asked after a moment.

“At least overnight,” Molly said, kicking the overnight bag under her chair lightly. “Anthea packed me a bag.”

They talked a bit longer until the day began to catch up to Sherlock. She had half a mind to bunk down in the guest chair, but one of the embassy staff stuck his head in and offered to take her to one of the guest rooms.

* * *

It was months before she heard from Mycroft again. She hadn’t really expected to hear from him, but she wished he’d tell her more of what Sherlock was up to—he’d given her a sort of broad strokes summary of things the morning after his surgery in Morocco, but she knew he was just telling her the parts that would make her smile (the people who were helping him, the grandmotherly woman who reminded him of Mrs. Hudson and helped him patch up after a near-miss, the sunrises over cities he’d never seen before).

“Mummy’s invited you for Christmas,” Mycroft said rather than ‘hello.’ Seeing his name on the mobile screen had sent her into a cold sweat, seeing as he never called with good news, and that only made his statement more confusing. “No parties or extended family. There will be an abundance of baked goods, though.”

“Oh,” she said. She wondered how far ahead he’d known about the plan—she hadn’t been scheduled for any shifts over the holidays despite agreeing to swap with a few people so they could have time with their families.

“Anthea will send you the address. I’ll have the keys to Sherlock’s Land Rover sent as well; no sense renting something when there’s a perfectly good vehicle collecting dust in a garage.”

“Okay.” She’d meant it as more of an ‘I hear you’ statement than agreement, but Mycroft either didn’t realize or, more likely, didn’t care.

“Good. That’s settled,” he said. “Mummy will be pleased to see you.”

And he rung off.

Two weeks later, the day before Christmas Eve, she put her bag in the back of Sherlock’s Land Rover and looked over the directions he’d sent one last time. It was a little village in Sussex, the house outside of the village proper.

Having met Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, the cottage was exactly what she expected. Cheerful and homey without being quaint. A bit cluttered, like Sherlock’s flat but with regular dusting. The whole place smelled of the abundance of baked goods Mycroft had promised.

Sherlock and Mycroft were not in attendance.

“Oh, Myc will turn up for Christmas dinner,” Mr. Holmes said when she’d asked (after being given a brief tour and realizing, given the bedroom situation, that she was going to be the only one sleeping over).

“He will if he knows what’s good for him,” Mrs. Holmes chimed in from the lounge. The preliminaries out of the way, she was making them all drinks.

“I’m… sorry,” Molly said, feeling wrong-footed and awkward. “It’s—I didn’t realize I was—”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Mrs. Holmes said. She returned to the kitchen with her fingers twined around three tumblers; Mr. Holmes hurried over to take the extras from her and hand one to Molly.

“Our boys are clever as they come, but they never really knew what to do with friends,” Mr. Holmes said, smiling a fond sort of smile. Mrs. Holmes nodded in agreement.

“We know they know how to _manipulate_ ,” Mrs. Holmes said. “But when it comes to people they actually like? I’m afraid we might’ve kept them a bit too isolated as children to know what to do about that.”

“It doesn’t come up very often,” Molly said, “but from what they’ve said, it sounds like they were fairly close as children.”

“Close as boys could be with seven years between them,” Mr. Holmes said. “They caught up to each other eventually, but there was a rough patch when Myc wanted to focus on his studies and our poor Sherlock just wanted a playmate.”

“Sherlock was always better at making friends, at least,” Mrs. Holmes said, swirling her drink pensively as she spoke. “Mycroft always claims he doesn’t see the point.”

“But if that were true, he wouldn’t have invited you for Christmas,” Mr. Holmes said. He was smiling, but there was something behind his eyes that made Molly wonder if it was a sore spot for the Holmes parents. If they worried about their sons, worried they might be lonely, even though they were grown.

“I sort of assumed it was Sherlock’s idea and Mycroft was just indulging him,” Molly admitted.

“I’m afraid, my dear, that you’ve convinced Mycroft to like you as well,” Mrs. Holmes said. “So you’re stuck with the lot of us now.”

Molly laughed, not sure what exactly to say. She couldn’t help but wonder if it was to do with the baby—if Mycroft was thinking Sherlock had more invested in their not-relationship than he did, if Sherlock didn’t want her without a familial sort of support at the holidays after a loss. It was very confusing, and the more she thought about it the more she couldn’t untangle it all.

They settled at the long table in the kitchen. There were more drinks and Mrs. Holmes had made a variety of Christmas-themed desserts to indulge in. They told her about the village (they’d lived there since Sherlock was ten or a little younger), about the latest news they’d had of Sherlock (Mycroft had _not_ told them about emergency surgery in Rabat), about their plans for the new year traveling to the States (they loved line dancing; Sherlock hadn’t been taking the mick on that). They asked her the sorts of questions that made her think Sherlock and Mycroft had been telling them things about her—they knew about the paper she’d been working on, knew her best friend’s name was Meena.

When it was time to turn in, she was put in the guest room at the top of the stairs. It was a cozy room with a fluffy comforter on the bed and a window overlooking the back garden. Mrs. Holmes made sure she knew there were extra blankets in the standing wardrobe in the hall, told her to help herself to whatever she needed.

Christmas Eve morning there were scones with jam and clotted cream. Mrs. Holmes kicked them out of the kitchen after they ate so that she could do more baking, and Mr. Holmes gave Molly a tour of the garden. There were mini Yorkshire puddings with roast beef and horseradish sauce for lunch. A sticky toffee pudding with tea.

For some reason, all of it made Molly miss Sherlock so much it ached. The way he told her she could borrow his loud, loving, extensive family any time.

She had to make a conscious effort not to think about the miscarriage. How, if things had been different, she could’ve been ensconced in the heart of the Holmes family with a grandbaby for them to love.

Mr. Holmes had a nap after tea. Molly helped Mrs. Holmes tidy in the kitchen, getting things ready for all the cooking to be done in the morning for their Christmas dinner. The conversations turned to holiday traditions, and Molly found herself talking about what she’d always thought of as “the good years”—a few scattered moments in time, really, from the time of her earliest memories to around six.

“No matter what days of the week they fell on, we spoke English Christmas and Christmas Eve. As a treat,” she said. 

“What do you mean ‘no matter what day of the week’?” Mrs. Holmes asked, fixing her with a befuddled look Molly had seen on Sherlock’s face before, if rarely.

“My parents were both linguists. They were fluent in more than a dozen languages between them,” Molly explained. “They wanted us all to learn, so they had a system—we’d speak English on Sundays and at school, and then Monday-Wednesday-Friday was one language, and Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday was another.”

It had been normal for her, switching from language to language; she hadn’t realized other families did differently until she was a few years into school.

“That’s remarkably ambitious,” Mrs. Holmes said. She was smiling, but she looked like she thought it was all a bit much to put on children. The reaction was a bit ironic, knowing her sons, but Molly didn’t say so.

“My brother—the oldest—had a knack for it. By the time Ellie and I—that’s Elaine, my twin—by the time we came along, it was just part of the routine.”

“I didn’t know you were a twin.”

“We’re not especially close,” Molly said, showing Mrs. Holmes the usual photo on her mobile. When people found out she was a twin, they always wanted to see photographic proof. She kept a picture from Ellie’s wedding in her camera roll just for that reason—it wasn’t especially recent, but they’d been happy when it was taken. “She’s an archaeologist. When she’s not out at a dig or doing a lecture tour, she lives in Glasgow.”

“Is that your brother behind you?”

“Oh. No. That’s the groom. Ellie’s husband Joe,” Molly said. “Charlie—our brother—died. Joe died, too, actually.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, dear,” Mrs. Holmes said, squeezing her hand gently. She looked so earnestly contrite it made Molly’s chest ache. “I shouldn’t have asked. Sherlock did say to leave it alone about your family.”

Molly smiled. That sounded like something he’d say.

“It’s alright. It was all a long time ago,” Molly said. Until the miscarriage, the only death that really still hung over her was her father’s. “Our parents divorced when we were eight. Shared custody, so there was more than a bit of commuting from one to the other. A car crashed into us one weekend when Mum was taking us back to Dad’s; she and Charlie were killed. We were fourteen. Charlie was seventeen.”

It would probably not do to mention that Joe had died of a brain aneurysm while Ellie was out picking up groceries. She’d come home and found him on the floor.

“Well. I’m especially glad the boys wanted you here for Christmas,” Mrs. Holmes said, getting up to take the Christmas cake out of the oven and patting Molly’s shoulder as she went by. “It can be difficult not to think about the people you’ve lost this time of year. And it’s good to have good company.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Holmes,” Molly said, meaning it. “Really.”

Molly told her about the last year her mum had bought her and Ellie matching Christmas dresses, trying to steer the conversation to happier waters. (It had been the Christmas after they’d seen “The Shining,” and they’d spent all their time standing at the far end of hallways holding hands; they’d always despised being mistaken for one another.) Mrs. Holmes, in turn, told her about the Christmas after they’d first sent Mycroft away to school, and their laughter had drawn Mr. Holmes downstairs from his nap.

They went to the midnight service in the village. It was a tiny little church, filled to bursting with everybody from the village and their visitors, decorated with garlands and wreaths and candles. After the service, the Holmeses lingered only long enough to chat with a few people—all of them were very curious who Molly was.

Molly woke Christmas morning to the sound of the encrypted call alert on her mobile. Muttering curses, she crawled out from her warm cocoon of blankets to answer, groggily giving the necessary passphrase responses to the voice on the other end, wondering if she could get away with burrowing back into the blankets while she took the call; it wasn’t like she was somewhere she could be collected from and rushed to a bunker for autopsies… Unless they sent a helicopter.

“Molly?” Sherlock said when she was finally connected properly to the call.

“Sherlock!” She sat bolt upright, thoughts of going back to sleep gone. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

“Everything’s fine,” he said. She could practically hear him rolling his eyes. “I’m just calling to say merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas?”

“Yes.”

“You’re really alright?” She couldn’t decide if it was some sort of secret code or not. He’d never much cared for the holidays before, nor his birthday for that matter. She’d only ever seen him participate in Christmas when John forced him into it by throwing a party at their flat (and the less she thought about it the better), and she only knew his birthdate because she’d seen his medical file.

“I’m fine.”

“Where are you?” It was an encrypted line, and he’d gone through the proper channels to connect so it really was secure, so he couldn’t tell her that he couldn’t say.

“I’m at the British embassy in between… assignments,” he said. “Perfectly safe. Perfectly bored.”

“You’re not allowed to be bored,” she told him (but she was smiling), “you’re legally dead. It’s very exciting.”

“It’s not,” he said. She could hear the reciprocating smile. “I’m to sit here and stay out of the way. They’re making Christmas dinner, but they’ve got the spices all wrong for the turkey.”

“Your mother is already cooking,” she said. Now that she was awake, she could hear Mr. and Mrs. Holmes talking softly in the kitchen, and she could smell the bird in the oven. “It smells divine.”

“Mycroft really convinced you to get to Sussex for Christmas?” Sherlock said. He sounded surprised, but also… pleased. “I thought he’d might’ve just been telling me he’d invite you just to put me off.”

“No, I’m really here. He borrowed me your car.”

“Might as well,” Sherlock said. “ _I’m_ not using it at the moment.”

“You rarely ever use it,” Molly said. “Even when you’re not legally dead.”

“London traffic—” Sherlock started, but Molly cut him off.

“Will you tell me where you are? More specific than the embassy?” she asked. “You’re safe? Seeing the sunrise over a city you’ve never been to before?”

“Madrid,” he said. “I’m at the embassy in Madrid. I’ve been here before—my parents took us just before Mycroft started uni—so it’s not a new sunrise. Still beautiful, though.”

“Madrid,” Molly echoed. She went to the window to look out at her own sunrise—she’d slept a bit late, so it was hardly the first blush of dawn, but it was still sunrise. “I’ve never been.”

“It’s nice,” he said. Molly had to smile at that sort of empty platitude coming from him. He really had called just to talk, to hear a friendly voice. Her chest ached again.

“My sunrise is over a city I’d never seen before. Sort of,” she said. “Your parents really are lovely.”

“Tedious, isn’t it?”

Molly laughed.

Sherlock told her a bit about where he’d been, and the light moment passed. After Rabat, he’d been in Mumbai. Then Moscow, though only briefly. Spain. He said he was headed to Egypt next, more than likely.

“You could request to see the reports, you know,” he said. “You have the clearance for it.”

“I think I’d worry more, if I knew. I’d end up watching the news for wherever you were headed and worrying every crime statistic was you.”

“You don’t have to worry about me, Molly.”

“I do anyway.”

She bit her lip. It was the closest they’d ever come to talking about feelings, really. And wasn’t that pathetic? _Years_ of friendship and sex, and never once had caring ever come up.

“I’ll tell Mycroft to give you more details. You won’t have to read the reports, but you’ll know I’m alive.”

“Okay,” she said after too long a pause.

“Do you have a few more minutes to talk?” Molly asked after another pause. She’d turned away from the window and put on her dressing gown, casting around for more to talk about, not wanting to let him go. “I could go downstairs so you can say ‘hello’ to your parents.”

“I really don’t—”

“I know they’d like to hear your voice,” she said, interrupting what probably would’ve been his usual tripe about sentiment and not needing to bother. “It’d be the best Christmas gift you could give them.”

“I already got them _you_ , didn’t I?” he asked sulkily. “Somebody in the house to fuss over. It’s a Christmas miracle.”

“William Sherlock, I swear,” Molly said, tutting in her best impression of his Cousin Kath. It made him laugh.

“Oh, you are up,” Mrs. Holmes said when Molly entered the kitchen. She had a full English laid out on the table. “I thought I’d heard you. Well, sit down, tuck in.”

“I’m putting you on speaker,” she told Sherlock, smiling at his parents as she did so. He heaved a put-upon sigh, and his mother’s eyes lit up the moment she heard it.

“Hello,” Sherlock said dutifully.

They chatted. It was a bit… adorable. His parents were so effusive and lovely, and Sherlock was clearly happy to hear their voices even if he pretended to be annoyed she’d “forced” him into the conversation. He didn’t tell them anything about where he’d been or where he was or where he was going, nothing about what he was up to, nothing about anything, really. He just listened, let them tell him all about the midnight service and how much they loved him and how Mycroft was due any minute but he hadn’t called ahead when he was leaving even though he’d told them he would.

“Alright, I really do have to ring off,” Sherlock said at last with a tone of finality. “They need me to put the Christmas star on the tree.”

Mr. Holmes chuckled merrily. Molly couldn’t tell if Sherlock was being sarcastic or not.

“Merry Christmas, Sherlock,” Mrs. Holmes said. “I’m very glad you called.”

“Be safe, son of mine,” Mr. Holmes said.

Molly felt like she was intruding for the first time since she’d arrived. For all Mr. and Mrs. Holmes left the drama and gallivanting to their sons, let them brush off things like sentiment, their love was fierce.

“Merry Christmas,” Sherlock said.

Molly took him off speaker, smiling at his parents, wondering if it would give something away if she left the room to say goodbye to him. Wondering if there was anything to even give away.

She wandered into the lounge.

“Molly?” he asked.

“Yes, still here,” she said. “You’re not on speaker anymore.”

“Right. Good.”

“Yeah.”

There was another pause. She wasn’t sure what to say, and it seemed like Sherlock didn’t know either.

Christmas calls just because they missed each other were very much outside the normal purview of their relationship.

“Merry Christmas, Molly Hooper,” he said at last.

“Merry Christmas, William Sherlock,” she said.

An hour later, when Mycroft finally arrived, he glowered at them all before pinning Molly in particular with a look.

“Would you explain to me—please—what in the world was so important that Sherlock spent _more than an hour_ on an encrypted call to this house this morning?” he said. “Do you know how much _paperwork_ I’m going to have to do about that?”


	10. one year after the fall

There were five bodies in the morgue at Bart’s. All of them had been found in East London, none of them had been from the UK, nor killed in the UK. Molly hadn’t drawn parallels between them until Greg came in with questions about the fifth victim and mentioned Jack the Ripper.

“Well, shit,” she said, pulling the files on all the bodies over in front of her.

“Molly?” Greg asked, eyebrows raised high.

She ignored him, opening the folders and spreading the crime scene photos for each victim out so she could see them. She’d never been particularly fascinated with the Whitechapel murders, but she was still familiar with them.

“Shit,” she said again.

“What are you thinking?” Greg asked, moving around to her side of the table to look at the photos. “Ripper copycat?”

“What? Yes, I suppose,” Molly said, because it was. “But that’s not all…”

Molly walked over to the big red button on the wall and pushed it, activating the biohazard protocols.

“Oy!” Greg said, throwing up his hands and looking around like he expected to see a corpse sitting out or some other likely source of pathogen exposure. That would’ve made sense, of course. But she’d rarely actually had to use the biohazard protocols for biohazards.

“Hey, Billie,” Molly said when the operator picked up. She added her best put-upon sigh. “This is Hooper down in the morgue. I just had to flip the biohazard switch down here. It’s probably a false positive, but I’ve got to follow the protocols.”

“Hope you didn’t have plans for after your shift, Doc,” Billie said sympathetically.

“Right?” Molly laughed, sighed again. “I’ll start the paperwork while I rerun the samples. Can you have them reroute anybody who tries to deliver a corpse? Not that we’re expecting anybody. But. You know.”

“Will do, Doc.”

“Oh, and I’ve got DI Lestrade with me, if anybody calls for him.”

“Got it.”

“Thanks, Billie.”

“What’s going on, Molly?” Greg asked.

“Sorry,” Molly said. “I really hope you don’t need to be anywhere for the next few hours.”

“Well, actually, there’s been a murder,” Greg said, pointing at the case files spread out across the table.

Molly went to one of the room’s desktop workstations and logged in, then went into the server space Bart’s didn’t actually know was accessible through their system and printed off the form she’d need. Greg watched her, frowning, obviously curious, but willing to wait for whatever explanation was forthcoming. Molly was thankful for that at least.

“Okay,” she said, holding out the document. “I need you to sign this.”

“NDA?”

“Yes.”

He gave her a mystified look—the one he’d always given Sherlock at crime scenes—then began reading it over.

“This is a government form,” he said when he got to the last page and saw the official seals there.

“Correct,” Molly said.

“What the hell, Molly?”

“Can’t tell you until you sign that form,” Molly said.

He frowned, looked the document over again, then took a pen out of his pocket and signed it.

“Thank you,” Molly said, then brought the last page over to the scanner so she could digitize a copy to forward it on.

“What the _hell_ , Molly?” Greg repeated.

“This,” she said, gesturing to the crime scene photos, “is Moriarty.”

“Moriarty shot himself in the—oh my God, don’t tell me he’s not really dead!”

“No, he’s really dead,” Molly assured him. “I had a tray full of skull fragments and brain matter they scraped off the roof.”

“How is this Moriarty, then?”

“He had this international criminal network,” Molly said. “He’d say he wasn’t in charge of any of it, that he was just a consultant, but he was the spider at the middle of the web.”

Those were Sherlock’s words. She wasn’t sure Greg would know that, though.

It had been nearly a full year since Sherlock’s drop from Bart’s roof. It had taken almost that long for the tide of public opinion to begin to turn in his favor again. Molly and Greg were both back to work more-or-less as usual following their suspensions, the official inquiries and hearings were behind them. It had all been a mess, and would’ve been worse if the British government hadn’t been in the background easing certain things along.

“So his stooges are echoing Jack the Ripper?” Greg asked, frowning and looking at the files again. He looked like he didn’t want to tell her she was making a big deal over nothing, but he really wanted to tell her the NDA was overkill.

Molly ignored his look and took out her mobile.

“Hi,” she said when she finally got to a real person after going through a dozen automated links. She’d had to plug in her ID number and passcode each time, and then again when there was a voice on the other end. “I need to contact an agent on assignment.”

“And that agent’s ID?”

She gave Sherlock’s ID, then agreed to wait while the person transferred her through to somebody who had access to that agent’s handler. The line clicked over several times as she was passed up the chain of command. While she was waiting, she pulled her wallet out of her pocket and fished the official government ID badge out from behind her driver’s license to show Greg—his eyebrows went up when he saw her clearance level, but he didn’t say anything.

“Hello?” Anthea said, her voice that neutral-polite tone she used when she expected to be about to hang up on somebody.

“Hi,” Molly said, then she scrunched up her nose and squeezed her eyes closed because she realized she’d have to say her codename out loud in front of Greg. “This is the Missus. I need to contact an agent on assignment.”

“Which agent?” Anthea asked, though she had to know which one Molly would be looking to talk to. For all her ridiculous clearance level, Molly was only actually involved in one particular agent’s work (unless she counted the random answers she provided Mycroft, which she didn’t). The government did love protocol, though.

“Mr. Bell,” Molly said.

“Mr. Bell is unavailable.”

“Yes, I know,” Molly said. “I have an urgent matter and a limited window of time.”

“I’m sorry—”

“Put me through to Antarctica.”

“He is unavailable as well.”

“If you don’t connect me, I will call his personal line,” Molly said, sick of the bullshit. “And you know how he loves it when I bypass protocol like that.”

“You cannot call his personal line for official inquiries,” Anthea said sharply.

“ _So put me through to him_ ,” Molly said, then took a deep breath in an effort to reign in her temper. “Please. It’s important.”

“Hold, please,” Anthea said, then put her on hold before Molly could say anything else.

“This is ridiculous,” Molly muttered, looking over at Greg. He’d pulled up a stool and was sitting at the table, the photos put back in their files and the folders stacked neatly together in front of him.

The line clicked again as she was once again transferred, and she half expected Mycroft to simply hang up on her. But he didn’t.

“Yes?”

“I need to contact an agent on assignment,” Molly repeated for what felt like the 400th time.

“The agent in question?”

“Mr. Bell.”

“Mr. Bell is unavailable.”

“I have information about the man he calls the spider,” Molly said. “It’s important. It could affect his current assignment. And my window of access for him is shrinking. Maybe two hours left.”

“He is out of the country.”

“Does he have access to a computer?” she asked. "A video-capable mobile?"

Mycroft was quiet for a long moment. So quiet that she was fairly sure he’d muted her.

“I am having a secure laptop delivered to you. Mr. Bell will be in touch.”

“Thank you.”

Mycroft made a humming sort of noise in acknowledgement.

“You should know that DI Lestrade is with me,” Molly said. “I’ve forwarded your assistant his paperwork.”

“That…is a wrinkle we didn’t need.”

“He’s the one working this particular case,” Molly said. “Review his active case files and I’m sure you’ll begin to see why it’s so important Mr. Bell see these particular corpses.”

“I’ll do that,” Mycroft said, and she wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic or not. He rung off, muttering something about sentiment.

“Bloody ridiculous, the lot of them,” Molly said, tossing her phone down.

“What’s going on?” Greg asked. He sounded bored.

“They’re bringing a laptop.”

“A laptop.”

“Yep.”

“I’m back to my original question,” he said, and Molly had to smile. “Also, how long have you been all secret agent-y?”

“Not that long, really,” Molly said. “It doesn’t actually come up all that much. Mostly it’s just forwarding paperwork on to a few extra people every once in a while. Occasionally a government car shows up in the of the night to drag me off to do a postmortem in an old bomb shelter.”

“Very glamorous, 007,” Greg said, and she was relieved to see that he was smiling too.

“I’m very much not a field agent,” Molly said. “I’m not even _any_ sort of agent. I’m just… useful. I guess.”

“Codename: the Missus?” he asked, face blandly curious while his eyes danced with humor. She had to smile back at him.

“A dig at the Holmes boys, I think,” she said. “Moriarty called them the Ice Man and the Virgin. And then I come along and work almost exclusively with them, so it’s supposed to be funny that I’d be the Missus. Or possibly it’s because I dated him that time. I really don’t know.”

“Wait, you _dated_ James Moriarty?”

“Not really. It was just a few dates, and then I ended it. And I hardly knew he was some criminal mastermind at the time, did I?”

Whatever Greg’s next question was going to be was cut off by the arrival of the laptop. Molly had to unlock the door with the physical key and take the laptop quickly, reengaging the lock before the system caught up to the breech and started caterwauling.

“Okay,” she said, hoping the spooks had made it easy for her. The last thing she needed was trying to sort out how to log in to some spy version of Skype.

“So who is this Mr. Bell person you need to talk to?” Greg asked, crossing to stand next to her as she opened the laptop and input her ID and passcode to log into it.

“You’ll see,” she said, because she kind of wanted to see his face when he realized Sherlock was alive.

The laptop booted up, and immediately a black box appeared at the center of the screen. Green text in the corner said “CONNECTING…”, then switched to “CONNECTION FOUND.” The box flashed white, and then there he was. The image was surprisingly good.

Sherlock had different hair again. Short on the sides and a bit longer on top, just barely long enough to see the curl. And he’d dyed it a gingery blond. He was in a white t-shirt with a pair of glasses folded and hanging from the neckline. He had a bit of a tan. Behind him was a bland blank wall painted beige.

“Hello, Molly,” Sherlock said as if they had video chats over special-delivered secure laptops every day. “What have you got for me? Oh, hello, Lestrade.”

“Oh, you bastard—!” Greg physically shoved himself away from the laptop, gaping, looking from the screen to her and back like he expected her to tell him it was an elaborate pre-recorded hoax.

“I’ve got five corpses here,” Molly said, retrieving the stack of case files from where Greg had left them when he’d crossed the room to have a look at the laptop.

“Don’t tell me the Yard is so out of its depth that you’ve dredged me up from the dead to have a look at a case,” Sherlock said flippantly, though his eyes were sparkling with interest. “I’ve only been gone a year.”

“You’re dead,” Greg said, then turned to Molly and pointed at the laptop. “But _he’s_ dead!”

“Not dead,” Molly said, flipping open the first of the files. “Faked it. You can’t tell anybody; you signed the NDA.”

“Well I’ll be… bollocks.”

“Rather you weren’t,” Sherlock said. “You’d be rubbish as a policeman if you were. Or at least more so.”

“Oy!”

“Yes, we’re all very happy to see each other,” Molly said, feeling like she’d been relegated to the referee’s role John normally filled. In order not to feel sad about John still being in the dark, she started holding up crime scene photos and talking through each of the files.

“Molly, did you arrange an emergency secure video connection for a Jack the Ripper fanatic?”

“ _No_ ,” she said, tossing the last of the photos back into the file more aggressively than she should’ve. “You’d be able to see if you were here and could get a proper look at these victims. I’ll give you a pass because it’s a webcam.”

Sherlock just grunted, shifting in his chair while he waited for her to continue.

“The first victim, male, late 50s, from Mumbai. The second victim, male, late teens or early 20s, from Moscow. The third victim, female, early 70s, born and raised in Cuba but spent her adult life in Spain. The fourth victim, male, 30 – 40, from Egypt. The fifth victim, female, early 40s, Swiss.”

“Show me their—”

Before he could finish asking, she held up the photos of the victims’ faces one after the next. She knew what he was going to see just as well as he did, at this point.

“What are you seeing?” Greg asked, looking at the other photos again himself.

“They all helped you, didn’t they?” Molly asked. “These were informants. Or they let you sleep in the spare room. Hid you in the back of their shop.”

“Good eye, Molly,” Sherlock said. He’d looked tired at the beginning of the conversation, but now there was a weariness about him that made her wish he was close enough to hug. “How did you…?”

“They were all killed elsewhere and dumped in Whitechapel,” Molly said. “They weren’t dumped in Jack the Ripper order, but they were killed in Jack the Ripper order. And if you line them up by who was killed first, it follows your travels exactly.”

“Somebody knows you’re alive and wants you looking at London,” Greg said.

“Molly, I wish you’d let Mycroft disappear you,” Sherlock said.

“Why? So I can miss things like _this_?” Molly asked, even though he’d said it so quietly she wasn’t sure he’d mean to speak out loud. “If they hadn’t turned up in my morgue, you wouldn’t know your allies were being picked off. If you don’t know your allies are being picked off, you can’t _do_ anything about it.”

“If you weren’t at the morgue, they wouldn’t have been sent to Bart’s,” Sherlock said. “And if somebody is killing my allies, _you’re_ at the top of the list.”

“What, so now it’s _my_ fault these people died? Because I’m here at the morgue for them to be sent to?”

“No! Don’t be—”

“Okay, kids, cool off,” Greg said, physically putting himself between Molly and the laptop like he was stepping in to break it up before it came to blows. She glared at him.

“Mycroft is sending you the files,” Molly said, doing her best not to huff out her annoyance. “Is there anything you think you need to see on the bodies themselves. I can try to bring the laptop over so you can get a look, and I can take more photos to add to the files.”

* * *

“Hi,” Greg said, standing there on her front step looking not quite uncomfortable. “I brought beer.”

“Good,” she said earnestly. All she had in was wine, and it wasn’t a wine sort of conversation.

After their video call with Sherlock, Molly had had to get a start on all the paperwork surrounding the fake biohazard incident and Greg had had to get on with his investigation. She’d promised a bit more explanation at the end of their shifts.

Greg made himself comfortable in an armchair while Molly fetched her bottle opener. Toby gave Greg a leery look, then dashed off to hide under the bed in the guest room.

“So he’s not dead,” Greg said when they’d been sitting there in silence for too long.

“Not dead,” Molly agreed.

“Does John know?”

“Nobody knows.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.”

She gave him the broad strokes over their first beers. The snipers, Sherlock sending John off while he went up to the roof, the many contingency plans. Moriarty’s unexpected suicide. The mad dash to substitute the corpse that looked like Sherlock.

“He put on some scrubs and walked out the side door,” Molly said, shaking her head.

“You cried at the funeral,” Greg said, for the first time looking a bit angry. “Full-on tears. I remember.”

“Well I was standing there lying to all my friends, it wasn’t that hard to be upset about it,” she retorted.

“His parents know, too, don’t they?” he said, sitting back and sipping his beer. He still looked a bit angry, but it wasn’t focused on her anymore. “I did wonder why they didn’t come to the funeral.”

“They were in Italy,” Molly said. “Mostly to avoid the press, I think.”

“John thinks they’re just distant. Uninvolved.”

“I know,” Molly said, scrubbing her hands over her face. That had been one of the harder parts of the funeral, watching John try so very hard to keep his cool. Mycroft had planned the funeral and it had all been the bare minimum to pass as a legitimate funeral in the eyes of the press; John and Mrs. Hudson had been up in arms. “They’re really very sweet. Doting. Honestly, it explains so much of Sherlock’s behavior meeting his mum—she fusses.”

“His parents are _sweet_?” Greg asked, his eyes dancing.

“Yes. His mum is a mathematician, taught at Cambridge. His dad is a cellist.” Molly smiled. “His dad gardens. His mum writes these absolute _tomes_ on calculus and things. They go out dancing every weekend. Travel quite a bit; they’re in Jamaica right now, actually.”

“They tell you their travel plans?” he asked, incredulous.

“I think they see me as some sort of connection to him. I know Mycroft gives them little updates, but it’s the redacted version of ‘the status of Mr. Bell,’ you know? They want to talk about their son Sherlock.”

She left out the part where his parents sent her an email nearly weekly, just saying hello and telling her what was blooming in the garden. His Cousin Kath had also added her to the Holmes cousins’ chain of emails; those came less regularly. (The cousins knew he wasn’t dead and that they weren’t allowed to talk about it, so instead they talked around it and passive-aggressively attached Molly to their emails.)

* * *

It was just a few weeks later that Greg’s divorce was finalized at long last. He invited her along for celebratory drinks. It was a nice time, a good group, but Molly decided to leave after the second round—the focus had switched from celebrating the end of the tedious legality of it all to getting their newly officially single again friend laid.

“They’re all going to think we’re shagging,” she told Greg when he followed her out.

“Yeah, sorry,” he said, looking a bit sheepish.

“There are worse assumptions they could make,” Molly said, winking at him. He laughed, then sobered a bit.

“Not really ready for that kind of celebration,” he said, shrugging.

“That’s alright.” She smiled at him. “When you are, though, I’ve got this friend from yoga—honorable discharge from the Army about the same time as John for about the same reason, divorced for the same reason you are; she’s nice.”

“Oh, God, now I’m going to have people trying to set me up with their divorcee friends all over the place, aren’t I?” he moaned, but he was still smiling so Molly decided he wasn’t cross about it.

“Afraid so,” she said. “I’ve got non-divorced—but still single—friends too. I just think you and Kate might hit it off. When you get to a place where you want to find somebody to hit it off with again.”

Greg sort of grunted noncommittally, then asked, “So what about you, then, eh?”

“What _about_ me?”

“Haven’t seen you with a new bloke in ages.”

“Well that last one turned out to be a mass murdering psychopath, so…”

“Put you off dating a bit, huh?”

“A bit.”

There was also the Thing (or Not Thing) with Sherlock. The baby.

What a mess.

“Where are we headed, then?” Greg asked after they’d been walking for a few minutes.

“Back to mine.”

“Walking the whole way?”

“Why not? It’s a good night for a walk.”

“I suppose it is.”

It really was a good night for it. They walked and talked. Greg told her about the early years of his marriage, the plans they’d had, the way he’d thought his life would go. Funny stories about horrible flats they could barely afford.

“How did you meet Sherlock?” she asked, because she’d never asked. She’d noticed that, at some point, Sherlock had gone from working mostly with DI Nguyen to working mostly with Greg, but she hadn’t paid it much mind at the time.

“Oh, the way everybody at the Yard ever did,” he said. “Rumors about his reputation first, and then he just showed up and told me I needed his help.”

“On a case, then?” Molly asked.

“Yeah. It was maybe my third case as a DI. Robbery gone bad. Turned out the robbery was staged, the husband was covering up his wife’s murder, but it happened the same night the daughter was running off with her boyfriend so we thought she’d been killed too. It was a mess of a thing.”

“He likes those sorts of puzzles, though,” Molly said. It was very nice to be able to use the present tense.

“How about you? He just waltzed into the morgue one day, I bet?”

“Oh, no, I met him during my foundation training. A&E rotation.” She decided it was probably better to leave it at that, even if he did already know she was a secret service asset. “And then properly with introductions and everything a few years later at Bart’s. DI Nguyen fetched me down from the path lab with many warnings that he’d brought a consultant who wasn’t especially nice.”

“And now we’re the ones who warn other people when we introduce him,” Greg said, laughing.

They exchanged stories about introducing Sherlock to new people the rest of the way to her flat. They were still chuckling when she unlocked her the door and he was standing there in her kitchen, eating leftover Chinese like it was the first food he’d had access to in years.

Molly closed the door and bolted it behind them. Greg looked a bit shocked, even if he’d known Sherlock wasn’t dead. Sherlock stared at them, chewing, eyes flickering over them as he made his deductions.

“Congratulations,” Sherlock said once he’d finished chewing.

“What?”

“Finalized your divorce,” Sherlock said, shoving another forkful of food into his mouth. “Long overdue.”

“Thanks,” Greg said, though the way he lowered his eyebrows made Molly think he wasn’t sure if he should be saying ‘thanks’ or not.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in Prague or something?” Molly asked. Mycroft had started sending her reports—not his little snippets of updates, but the actual reports on what Sherlock and the others involved in dismantling Moriarty’s network were up to. (She was fairly sure it was an extension of the Holmes campaign to get her to go into hiding until they’d sorted out the Jack the Ripper thing.)

“Mm, finished that,” Sherlock said, shrugging with one shoulder. “Here for a few days until the new passport is ready.”

“Had to update it with—” She made a vague gesture at him—he had a full beard, trimmed so that it made the shape of his jaw look different, and longer hair than she’d ever seen on him.

“Yep,” Sherlock said, popping the ‘p.’

“It’s quite the look,” Greg said, eyes sparkling with held-back laughter. “I wouldn’t have recognized you on the street.”

“That’s the point,” Sherlock said. He scratched at his chin. She wondered how long he’d been growing out his facial hair to have such a beard.

Molly put her bag away on its hook in the closet, toed off her shoes. Greg tossed his suit coat over the back of one of the armchairs in the lounge.

“Beer?” Molly asked.

“Sure,” Greg said. He sat on one of the stools at the kitchen island, looking at Sherlock like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to hug him or hit him.

“Is this a thing the two of you do now?” Sherlock asked disdainfully. “Beer.”

“It’s always been a thing we did,” Molly said. She put three beers on the kitchen island, taking the top off one and handing it over to Greg since he was a guest. Sherlock was a squatter and could take the top off his own damn beer.

“You shouldn’t drink anymore just yet, Molly,” Sherlock said. She glared at him, about to tell him off, but he kept talking: “I’m in need of medical attention.”

“What happened? What do you need?” she asked, moving around the kitchen island so that she could see him properly. He was in pajama bottoms and a ratty old hooded sweatshirt, his hair still just a bit damp from a shower; no obvious injury, no blood.

“Knife,” he said simply, reaching down to pull up the pajama bottoms so that she could see his left calf. He’d wrapped the injury in gauze bandages that appeared mostly soaked through, though most of the gauze was covered by duct tape.

“Sherlock,” Molly said, exasperated, “what have I told you about wounds and duct tape?”

Sherlock ignored her, going back to his leftovers while she fetched the first aide kit from the hall cupboard. She’d stocked up in the years since she’d met Sherlock. He didn’t turn up often, but he’d rarely brought her the same sort of injury twice.

“Sit,” Molly instructed, pulling one of the island stools around to the kitchen side so that it was almost directly under the lights. She brought a pair of dining chairs in, situating one so that he could prop his foot up on it and the other so that she could sit while she worked.

“When did this happen? How long ago?” Molly asked. She cut away the tape and the gauze, glad Toby was off hiding somewhere and not likely to try to play with the discarded bits.

“Yesterday? Two days ago?” Sherlock shrugged. “I crossed time zones.”

“You should’ve gone to a hospital.”

“Unnecessary paper trail,” Sherlock said. He scraped the last of the Chinese out of the container and set it aside, picked up one of the beers. He focused his attention on her work, seeming completely detached from the fact that it was happening to his own leg.

“What about infection, Sherlock? I don’t have any antibiotics for you.”

“There’s barely signs of inflammation,” Sherlock scoffed.

She pinched his thigh, hard. He jumped and yelped, glaring at her. Greg laughed.

Molly put the bits of gauze and duct tape in the trash, called the spooks to have them bring her antibiotics and a tetanus booster, then washed her hands.

“Hold still,” Molly told him. Sherlock glared more pointedly, but didn’t move.

It was a relatively clean cut made by a sharp knife. She cleaned it out, stitched it up, bound the whole thing properly. By the time she was done, the spooks had brought her everything she’d requested, and she made Sherlock take one arm out of the hoodie so she could give him his jabs.

“It wasn’t a _rusty_ knife,” Sherlock protested, but Molly held him still and finished up before he could put his sleeve back on. He didn’t fight it much, really.

“This was incredibly stupid, Sherlock,” Molly told him when she was done. She cleaned up her mess, made a mental note to restock what she’d used out of her kit, and washed her hands again. “You should’ve had it seen to immediately. What if it _had_ been a rusty knife? What if it went septic? It’d be an awfully stupid way to die, given everything.”

Sherlock waved her concern away, opening the third beer and handing it over to her.

They moved to the lounge, working their way through a few more beers each while they talked. They danced around the hole in the room that was John’s absence, but otherwise it was nice.

“You don’t have to,” Molly said when Greg announced his intention to head out. It was late and they’d run out of beer, but she was in that perfect loose-but-not-quite-drunk stage and the conversation had been good. “I’ve got a really expensive bottle of scotch and a really cheap bottle of wine we could crack into.”

“Nah, better to quit while I’m ahead,” Greg said, setting the last of his empties in the row the three of them had been making down the center of the coffee table. “I don’t have to work tomorrow and I think I’d rather enjoy it than spend the whole day hungover.”

“Very wise,” Sherlock said, nodding even as he took a long swig from his bottle. It made Greg laugh again, and Molly was fairly sure that was what Sherlock had been aiming for.

“Want me to call you a cab?” Molly asked, getting up to walk him to the door.

“It’s a good night for a walk,” Greg said, eyes twinkling at her. “I’ll just pop down to the Tube.”

“Alright, then,” Molly said. She went up on her tiptoes so she could kiss him on the cheek, then gave him a tight hug. “Congratulations on officially being divorced, Greg. I know it was a hard run.”

“Thanks,” he said. He hugged her back, then let her go to hold out his hand to Sherlock to shake. (Molly hadn’t even realized he’d followed her to the foyer.) “Really good to see you, mate.”

“It was good to see you too,” Sherlock said, and he really seemed to mean it. Molly beamed at them.

“My dad gave you scotch?” Sherlock asked her after she’d locked up behind Greg. They returned to the lounge, and he surprised her by collecting the line of empty beer bottles, depositing them in the recycle bin.

“He did,” Molly confirmed, dropping onto the couch. “I’m not a huge scotch drinker, but it’s a really good scotch.”

“You really are stuck with us now,” Sherlock said. “If Dad’s giving you scotch, you must be one of his sons.”

“Does that make me a David? Or is it Anthony for the third son?”

“David,” Sherlock said, sitting next to her and putting his feet on the table again. “Though it’d actually be Jessica, since you’d be the first daughter.”

“We had a neighbor named Jessica near Mum’s,” Molly said, wrinkling her nose. “She was horrible. Complete brat. Hated me with a passion for no reason I could ever figure out. Made it her life goal to point out every flaw. Horrible girl.”

“We’ll just stick with David, then,” Sherlock said, eyes crinkled with amusement.

“Better than ‘the Missus.’” Molly rolled her eyes.

“Oh, come on. That one is a little funny.”

“Yeah, the first few times.” She shifted so that her back rested against the arm of the sofa and she could bury her toes beneath his thigh to keep warm. He leaned over obligingly to let her get her toes in place, then shifted back; his arm stretched along the back of the sofa so that his hand could reach her ponytail and twiddle with the end.

“You and Lestrade have gotten closer since I’ve been gone,” Sherlock said after a moment. “You never used to invite him over for drinks.”

“That is fairly new. Just since he found out about you,” Molly said. “He’s still processing it a bit, I think, and it’s not really something we could talk about at a pub. And his ex made a scene in court today, so he really did need a drink. And a friend or two.”

“Have you heard from John?” Sherlock asked after the silence had settled heavy between them. His fingers stopped playing with her hair as he looked at her with serious eyes, waiting for her answer.

“Not recently,” Molly said, biting her lip. “Mycroft’s keeping an eye on him, but it’s the way Mycroft does that sort of thing—he’s leaving his flat and he hasn’t dramatically lost weight, so he must be fine.”

“You’ve lost eleven pounds since I died.”

Molly just looked at him, not sure what he wanted her to say to that. It was true enough. Her doctor was worried about it, worried it might be depression following the miscarriage.

“It’s hard to be back in London,” Sherlock admitted after another long, quiet, heavy moment. “Things have changed. Things have stayed the same.”

“You miss it.”

“Yes.”

Molly reached over and took the hand the wasn’t playing with the end of her hair, holding it between both of hers.

“Will you ever come back? Really come back?” she asked him. It was something that had started to weigh on her, that thought that drifted into her head in the middle of the night and wouldn’t leave off.

“I assume so. I hope so,” he said thoughtfully, lacing his fingers with hers. “I don’t know how much more I can do that couldn’t be done by somebody else. Anybody else. The things that have needed my particular insight to succeed with less loss of life have already happened.”

“You’re saying this next bit is going to be dangerous,” Molly said. For some reason it was the way he was looking at their entwined hands that gave it away more than the actual words he said. “More potential for loss of life going forward.”

“It’s always been dangerous.”

“Sherlock. You know what I mean.”

“Yes, this next assignment is more dangerous than before. I’m going in very deep. The information should be worthwhile, but extraction will be challenging.”

“Challenging.”

“Don’t worry about me, Molly.”

“Not possible.”

They sat in silence again. She felt like they were sitting at the cusp of something, teetering on the edge of a moment that would define… something. Something that would split their relationship into a “before” and “after,” and it was terrifying because she couldn’t sort out what had changed.

“I’ve never seen you with a beard before,” she said at long last. Shying away from whatever the heavier subject was, smiling at him when he raised his eyebrows at the odd statement.

“I’ve never had a beard quite like this before,” he said, itching at it now that she’d reminded him about it.

“It doesn’t look half bad, you know.”

“I don’t care how it looks,” he said, eyes snapping to hers like he was really hoping to see that she was teasing him and not remotely suggesting he should keep the thing. “I hate it.”

Molly shifted forward, moving her toes out from under the warmth of his thighs so that she could go up on her knees next to him and put her hands on his face. She stroked his cheeks, teased her fingers along his jaw the way she always had scratched his scalp under his hair. He shivered at the touch, eyelids dropping closed.

“I’ve never kissed a man with a beard,” Molly said. She hadn’t actually meant to say it out loud. He seemed to like the idea, though, because his eyes flashed open and he smirked at her.

Sherlock pulled her close and kissed her. She braced her hands on his chest to keep herself from falling entirely into his lap.

The hair on his face tickled and prickled. It was different, but not the least bit unpleasant.

“Now you have,” Sherlock said, ending the kiss with a chaste peck to her cheek.

“It really does change the whole look of your face,” she told him, stroking the hair on his cheeks just because she could. It was a full beard and mustache with sideburns and everything. 

“That’s the idea,” he said, closing his eyes and letting his head fall back against the couch. He seemed to enjoy the feel of her hands on his face even if he hated the beard.

“How’s your leg?” she finally asked, catching herself thinking about snogging him again, thinking about telling him she’d never had sex with a man with a beard just to see what he’d do. Things had changed between them in ways that she wasn’t sure how to define and she wasn’t really sure if sex was part of the relationship anymore, if it even should be.

“Fine. Tender,” he said, looking down at it as though he could check the state of his stitches through the leg of the pajama bottoms. “I think the lidocaine cream is still working because there’s not much sensation around the stitches.”

“Good. That’s good.” She hadn’t had anything stronger than the over-the-counter numbing cream, seeing as she had this friend that occasionally turned up at her flat, had a bit of a drugs problem, and was able to pick any lock she might buy to secure those pain medications.

“Thank you, Molly,” he said, cupping her face with one hand, looking at her with open tenderness. She blinked at him, surprised, but smiled; he was a bit more drunk than she’d thought.

“I’m done in,” she said. She wanted to kiss him again, but that felt like crossing a line even if they were a little drunk. “Are you staying?”

“Unless you kick me out,” he said. He let his hand drop away from her face. “I really am waiting on that passport.”

“Alright, then. And you’ve already found your pajamas,” she said, getting up and stretching. “Spare toothbrushes are where they always are.”

Sherlock hummed an agreeing/acknowledging sort of hum, and she left him to whatever it was he was going to do with the night. Usually when he slept over it was because they’d prearranged to have sex. Sometimes, it was because he was avoiding Baker Street—when John brought home a date—or needed a change of scenery to think; he rarely actually slept when he was around for those sorts of visits.

Molly brushed her teeth, washed her face, changed into her pajamas. She could hear Sherlock moving around, checking the doors and windows, turning off lights; apparently he was planning to sleep. He smiled blandly at her as he passed through her bedroom on the way to the ensuite to brush his teeth, dropping the hoodie in the hamper as he went. It was all utterly domestic and utterly absurd.

Molly set her alarm, plugged in her mobile, got into bed. She’d barely got settled beneath the covers when Sherlock slid in next to her, wrapped his arm around her waist, and pulled her close against him.

It was like something inside her unclenched. She wasn’t sure if it was to do with all the worry she carried around, forever fearful that he really would turn up dead and she wouldn’t know about it until days or weeks after the fact, or if it was to do with a familiar masculine body beside hers.

Molly turned in his arms so that she was facing him, inhaling the scent of him once her face was pressed to his chest, looking up at the strangeness of his face with the beard lit only by what moonlight filtered through her window.

He didn’t kiss her, just held eye contact while he trailed his fingertips down the side of her ribs until he found the hem of the t-shirt she'd put on to sleep in, drawing it up and over her head. He tossed it aside, putting one hand on her shoulder to get her to lie flat on the bed, then gave her one more of those looks—looking for consent?—before he nuzzled his face along the median of her body, gently tickling her with his beard from sternum to pelvis.

Molly squirmed, realizing he’d settled on his knees between her legs when she tried to draw her knees up to protect herself from the tickling and found her legs clamped around his waist instead. He didn’t continue the tickling, though, tipping his face to the side to capture a nipple gently between his lips, suckling at it delicately before nipping, teasing it into a hardened bud, then dragging his prickly jaw across it as he moved to do the same to the other.

“Sherlock,” Molly breathed, squeezing his body with her legs, driving her hands into his hair. She wasn’t sure if she was begging him to stop or keep going. The beard was irritating and stimulating all at once, and Sherlock had figured out long ago what to do to make her writhe for him. “Sherlock.”

“Scoot back,” he instructed, sitting up and urging her to move her hips back toward the headboard. He hooked a finger in her pants and pajama bottoms as she moved, tossing them away in the same direction her top had gone.

He waited for her to settle back against the pillows before he moved up between her legs again. He lifted her foot, kissed her ankle, moved in so that he could settle her leg over her shoulder, kissed her knee as he moved it past his head, kissed the inside of her thigh.

Sherlock Holmes had a wicked tongue. Within moments she was panting and keening, taken right to the edge of orgasm but not quite allowed to reach that peak. His fingers worked inside her as his lips and tongue teased at her clitoris, and then he’d draw back to nuzzle his face against her thighs.

“I’m close,” she told him. “I’m so close.”

He didn’t let her come until she looked down at him, looked him in the eyes as he lapped at her quim, slid a third finger inside her and twisted his wrist…

When she caught her breath, his fingers were gently stroking, not quite touching her over sensitized clit, his head resting over her sex, his chin and that ridiculous beard nestled beneath her naval. His face, his beard, glistened with her secretions.

“Sherlock,” she said, voice raspy. He smiled at her and she couldn’t keep herself from smiling back. “Wicked man.”

He shifted forward, something rumbling in his chest that might’ve been a chuckle. He moved his hands to her hips, urging her to shift back down the bed a bit again so that they could lie down. He was still completely dressed in his pajamas, but he covered her body with his anyways, grinding himself against her a few times before she managed to get her hands between them and pull the fabric out of the way.

Sherlock pressed his forehead to the side of her neck, easing his way into her body. She moaned—couldn’t help it—and pulled her knees up beside his ribs, contorting a bit so that she could feel him push in all the deeper. It was a little bit divine and she thought she might go mad with it.

“Molly,” Sherlock said, voice choked.

“I’m here,” she said. “I’m with you.”

He snapped his hips forward, thrusting deep, then pulled back and did it again.

“Molly,” he said again, trying to shift so that he could brace his weight on just one of his hands and get the other between them. Molly clenched down on his cock before he could, intercepting the hand and linking their fingers together.

“Too tired for two tonight,” she told him. She brought their linked hands to her lips and kissed the back of his before she moved it to the mattress above her head, letting him brace himself there and pin her hand in place at the same time. Little touches of submissiveness like that always seemed to work for him; nothing overt, too much and it made him uncomfortable, but—

“ _Oh_ , M—”

He came with a hot jolt deep inside of her. His hold body shook with it, the pumping thrusts slowing to a sated sort of rocking. Molly let her legs drop back down to the mattress, smiling as he rolled off her.

Molly got up and used the restroom, cleaned up a bit. When she returned to bed, Sherlock had detangled himself from his pajamas and tossed them over the side of the bed with the rest of their clothes.

“Leg still okay?” Molly asked. She’d brought him a warm flannel to clean up with, knowing better than to expect he’d actually get out of bed after that.

“S’fine,” he said muzzily, making a few perfunctory wipes with the flannel before he tossed it aside with their clothes and tucked her to his side again, pulled the covers up around them.

Sherlock didn’t snore. The moment he had her where he wanted her, he simply dropped into stone-dead sleep. Molly smiled to herself, and fell asleep wondering if it was a bit deviant to feel some heady feminine power to sleep in the arms of a man whose beard _reeked_ of her.


	11. boyfriends

Sherlock’s passport arrived three days later, and he actually took the time to say goodbye before leaving. He kissed her, too. A proper, intense, not-quite-snog goodbye. She had no idea what to make of it.

For almost a month after he’d gone, the reports she received were fairly standard. He was mostly incommunicado, but his handler or the other agents or whoever was keeping an eye out for him had seen him and he hadn’t signaled for help or extraction. Then, he went completely dark; no sign of him.

Molly tried not to worry. He’d warned her he was going deep, warned her getting out again would be tricky.

She tried to focus on what she could control. She built herself a routine—Tuesday – Friday day shift at Bart’s, overnight shifts every other weekend, yoga on Tuesdays and Thursdays after work, lunch with Mrs. Hudson on her off Sundays. She checked in regularly with Lady Smallwood’s underlings, and slightly less regularly with Mycroft’s.

Nobody had any information for her about the Ripper fanatic, and she tried not to worry about that either.

She started seeing Greg more often, stopping for coffee with him when his cases brought him to Bart’s or sometimes popping in to see him at his office when she knew he was slogging through paperwork. She let Meena talk her into going out for drinks with the old crew from Bart’s (and a few friends from foundation training who had landed at other hospitals in London). She even agreed to go for lunch with a few women from her yoga class.

It was all absurd and _normal_ and bloody weird. Sherlock’s parents still emailed her almost weekly, and she felt guilty every week as she read through their updates and had nothing to report back. She’d begun dreading the “I’ve received word that Sherlock is dead” conversation.

A few times, she went out for drinks with Anthea, Mycroft’s PA. Her name really was Anthea, though she took a particular sort of glee in giving men like John Watson the impression that it was an alias. People she liked were allowed to caller her Annie. Molly couldn’t tell if Anthea had been dispatched to keep an eye on her or if it was really an overture of friendship, but she didn’t really mind; when she got going, Annie swore like a sailor and told fantastic stories.

* * *

It took Molly weeks— _weeks_ —to realize the boyfriend John her friend Mary from yoga was always talking about was John Watson.

Mary had been one of those from the little yoga group that had met for lunch. They’d been fast friends. It was amazing how well they got on; Mary was easy to talk to. She was friendly, clever. Sunny in a way that was also somehow mature, a thing Molly had never quite managed to pull off.

It was probably a sign that she hadn’t seen enough of John lately that it took so long for Molly to put things together.

“Well we need to go out for drinks. Obviously,” Mary had said, smiling wide. And that’s what they did.

Mary was a wonderful influence on him; John was doing much better than he had been. They worked together at a little clinic, and they’d be moving in together at the end of the month when the leases were up on their separate flats.

“How’ve you been?” John asked when the conversation about his and Mary’s relationship had reached its natural conclusion. “Do you still see Greg? Mrs. Hudson?”

“I’m good,” she said honestly enough. “I see Greg sometimes. You know. At work.”

“Yeah,” John said. “Makes sense.”

“And I’ve been popping in on Mrs. H on my off Sunday,” Molly said, fidgeting with her glass. “It’s when I used to go over to check and make sure the ratio of food to biological waste in the fridge didn’t get past that tipping point.”

“Oh,” John said. He glared at his beer for a moment and took a deep drink of it before continuing: “I haven’t seen her in… ages.”

“She hasn’t let your old flat,” Molly said, and immediately wished she hadn’t. “Hasn’t even changed anything. It’s… I’d visit more often, but it’s hard. Everything there is a reminder.”

Mostly she’d avoided the place because she kept thinking she should take a few of his things for the next time he showed up at her flat. His violin, mostly. But Mrs. H would definitely notice if Sherlock’s violin went missing.

“Yeah,” John said quietly. Mary reached over and squeezed his hand.

“She actually—don’t laugh—she actually just bought the flat next to mine. My horrible neighbor was finally trying to sell, and I mentioned it to Mrs. H, and next thing I know she’s offering to give me a weekly allowance if I’ll keep an eye on it once she finds a tenant,” Molly said. “And who knows what _that_ cheque is going to look like, knowing her.”

“Mrs. Hudson is moving?” John asked. He looked… devastated.

“Oh, no,” Molly said, squeezing his arm quickly. “No, she just has more money than God. Her financial advisor has been on her for years to expand her real estate holdings.”

Especially if she wasn’t going to let out the flats at Baker Street, but Molly didn’t want to bring that part up to John.

Mary saved what could’ve been an awkward lull by launching into a story about the most horrible neighbor she’d ever had. John listened with the sweetest sort of rapt attention Molly had ever seen on his face, and it made her smile.

“Sorry, sorry,” Molly said, chewing her lip when her mobile trilled. It was the encrypted line alert. “It’s just—it might be work.”

But of course it wasn’t. She darted outside, hoping there wouldn’t already be a car waiting for her, and it was Sherlock.

“Molly,” he said, intense as ever.

“Uh—Will. Hi,” she said. Her heart was racing. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you.”

“Where are you?”

“Out at the pub with friends,” she said, glancing back through the window. John and Mary were chatting, their torsos angled toward each other; they were kind of adorable. “Turns out the boyfriend my friend Mary has been telling me about is actually my friend John. Small world.”

“John? John Watson?”

“That’s the one.”

He was quiet a moment, like he was processing it.

"They're good together," she told him. "Happy."

“Well. That’s good, then. I guess.” His tone made it clear that he had no idea what to make of it.

“So what’s going on, then?” She tried to keep her tone casual. “Did you need something?”

“You’re being assigned a security detail.”

“I’m _what_?”

“The threat has been shifting closer to home. You’re a known ally, as proven by the copycat Ripper victims winding up at Bart’s morgue.”

“So I’m—you’re—”

“Tell people he’s your boyfriend,” Sherlock said. “He’ll sweep your flat regularly for anything suspicious. Escort you to and from work.”

“ _Will_ ,” she hissed, even more cross because she couldn’t use his proper name to reprimand him, “I do _not_ need a—”

“Molly. Please,” Sherlock said, his voice too quiet. It made her wonder what he wasn’t telling her, what he’d seen, what he’d tracked down. She sighed.

They were quiet for a moment. She wanted to ask him where he was, if he was safe. And she wanted to tell him to stick the fake boyfriend security detail right up the pipe, but she didn’t. Instead, she turned and did as best she could to snap a photo of John and Mary chatting together in the pub, then sent it on to Sherlock.

“Your security detail,” Sherlock said. She knew he’d received the photo because there had been a very long pause while he looked at it. “You’ll be calling him Tom Abbott. His file will be waiting for you by the time you get back to your flat tonight.”

“Are you really okay?” she asked.

“Of course I am.”

* * *

Mr. Abbott— _Tom_ , she was supposed to call him; he was sort of undercover as her boyfriend, after all—wasn’t so bad, really. He was tall, curly brown hair. When he was simply acting as her security detail, he was polite, all business, thorough. When he was playing the part of her boyfriend, he acted a sort of amiable goofball. (She wasn’t sure what it said of the spooks’ impression of her that that had been determined to be the sort of boyfriend she’d go for.)

“You really have to do this every time we get back?” she asked him for what felt like the hundredth time, though it had only been a week.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, smiling good-naturedly. “Protocol.”

Molly sighed and stayed her in assigned spot just inside her own door while he did a sweep. Toby hopped off the sofa and made his way over to wind between her legs, purring, ready for his supper.

“Sorry, Tobe,” she said, crouching down to scratch between his ears. 


	12. homecoming

Mycroft Holmes had invited her to a party.

No. That wasn’t right.

Mycroft Holmes had had her abducted so that a professional could spend more than an hour on her hair and makeup, and then he’d turned up in black tie to escort her to a party.

Her life had taken a turn for the completely absurd.

It was a charity gala of some sort. The room was full of the rich and influential; she was fairly sure she’d spent the better part of the first hour talking to a dignitary of some sort. The cocktails were fantastic.

Mycroft had provided a dress. Unlike the overnight bag Anthea had thrown together for her rush off to Morocco, the dress had come with a label, as had the shoes; designer sort of labels. The dress was modest in front but backless, and the shoes cost more than her monthly mortgage payment. He’d also handed her a jewelry box with a droopy necklace built for the backless dress—resting across her collar bones in front, then a long chain down her back to end in a pendant.

As best as she could figure, he’d brought her along to make his colleagues wonder why he’d brought her along. It would, apparently, be bad taste for any of them to ask her connection to him.

It was all very surreal.

There was no dancing, though. And nobody actually interested in talking to _her_ ; just people who wanted to talk to the woman Antarctica had brought in with him. And she’d had an unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach that she really didn’t like since they’d left the salon.

She’d called her sister, because it was that sort of feeling, but Ellie hadn’t picked up.

Molly was just wondering if there was a point where it wouldn’t be rude to ask Mycroft how long she had to stay when a waiter—attendant? security person?—stepped in to whisper into Mycroft’s ear.

“I assure you,” Mycroft said when the man had finished his whispering, “you are mistaken.”

The man had a pained look on his face and handed Mycroft a mobile. Mycroft scowled at it, then the man, then excused himself from the conversation to take the call.

Molly sipped her drink, nodding along while the others continued to talk. The French couple was talking about a recent ski trip in the Alps; they’d liked it so much they were considering buying a chalet. Idly, Molly wondered if Cousin Kath and her husband had opted to buy the chalet they’d been thinking about; it had been in the last email and had struck Molly as possibly the most absurd thing she’d ever heard, but maybe it was just a rich people thing.

“Miss Hooper,” the same man who’d pulled Mycroft away said, this time appearing at her own elbow. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but Mr. Holmes has asked for you.”

Molly smiled politely and followed the man out into the hall. To her surprise, Mycroft wasn’t waiting just outside the door. The man handed her her clutch and led her toward the front door, and she’d begun to worry that it had all been some elaborate ruse to separate her from Mycroft and abduct her or something when she saw Mycroft getting into the Rolls Royce they’d arrived in. He gestured for her to hurry.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

The moment her door had been closed, the driver merged into traffic.

“Your sister has been attacked,” Mycroft said, putting his mobile in the inside pocket of his jacket.

“ _What_?”

“The first responders thought she was you. She was brought to Bart’s,” he said, voice infuriatingly calm. “DI Lestrade was called as your emergency contact, and he called me.”

“What about my sister? What happened? Is she alright?” Molly asked. She wanted to shake him.

“Lestrade is investigating now that he has his wits about him.”

“What?”

“ _Sentiment_ ,” Mycroft sneered. “He thought his friend was injured and he stopped thinking like a policeman.”

“I can think of somebody else who stopped thinking a certain way when somebody they cared about was hurt,” Molly said. It was all she could do to keep from exploding at him; it wouldn’t help.

“It is a weakness,” Mycroft said almost mournfully, like he was agreeing with her.

Molly wanted to shake him, slap him, throw herself out of the car and run all the way to Bart’s. Instead, she opened her clutch and took out her mobile; it was buzzing. She had missed several dozen calls from nearly everybody she knew at Bart’s. Twice as many texts.

“Jesus,” Molly muttered, putting the mobile back in her clutch without responding to any of the messages.

They entered Bart’s from the ambulance bay. People stared. There was a whole contingent of security people flanking them, so it was no wonder they stared.

Mycroft seemed to know where they were going. Or maybe it was the security people who did. Either way, doors were opened and hallways were traversed. They ended up in a private room with a policeman standing outside the door. When the security detail and the officer started puffing up about showing IDs and who had authority to go into the room, Greg stuck his head out the door and put a stop to it.

“Molly,” he said. “Alright?”

“What happened?” she asked, shouldering her into the room. Greg followed her in, hovering at her elbow like he wasn’t sure she might collapse when she saw her sister.

It was hard to look at her.

Ellie’s right leg was in a splint, propped up into proper position with several pillows. Her arms were inflamed, covered in lacerations, defensive wounds. The left side of her face was bruised, her eye swollen shut. Her lip was split. She’d needed stitches on her cheek. Whatever other injuries there were were covered by the hospital gown.

“Oh, Ellie,” Molly said. She walked around the bed to hold onto her less injured-looking hand.

Whatever disagreement had been going on outside the door settled. Mycroft entered the room with one of his security team.

“What happened?” Mycroft asked, all cold authority and impatience.

“Um,” Greg said, glancing at her before he shared what he’d learned. “She’s in town with a friend—Jennifer Dannon. They went their own way for the day but were supposed to meet for dinner; Dannon called the police when she didn’t turn up at the hotel or answer her mobile.”

“And?” Molly prompted when he stopped talking.

“A lady walking her dog in the park spotted her, called it in. The first responders thought she was you, brought her here, called me. No purse, no mobile, no ID, no wallet, no cash—”

Greg trailed off when Mycroft stepped up to the end of the hospital bed, eyes darting over Ellie’s injuries. It was strange to see somebody other than Sherlock do it, but of course Mycroft was the one who’d taught him.

“They realized she wasn’t Molly,” Mycroft said thoughtfully. “Decided to make it look like a random robbery.”

Anger burned in Molly’s gut, but before she could start shouting at him, there was another commotion outside the door.

“That’s Jen,” Ellie said weakly. Molly startled, tried not to squeeze her sister’s hand too tight, twisted so that she could look her over.

“Hey,” Molly said, her voice breaking a bit. “How are you feeling?”

“About as good as I look,” Ellie said.

“Can I get you anything? How’s the pain?”

The security person who’d followed Mycroft into the room opened the door to tell those who had remained outside to let Jen through.

“What happened?” Ellie asked, ignoring Molly’s question. She turned her head so that her non-swollen eye could give her a view of the door.

A nurse was called to check on Ellie. Greg asked official questions—it was strange watching him be Detective Inspector Lestrade sometimes. Jen took Molly’s place holding Ellie’s hand. Molly stood by the wall next to Mycroft, trying not to cry.

Ellie didn’t remember much about the attack. She’d been in the park, walking through on her way back to her hotel. She hadn’t noticed anybody following her, seen anybody strange. A man had called her Miss Hooper before hitting her from behind. She remembered getting her hands up and screaming for help, but then nothing until she was in the ambulance and the EMTs were calling her Molly.

“They were after _you_ ,” Ellie said, looking at Molly for the first time since she’d started talking. It wasn’t exactly an accusation, but that might've just been because her sister was too tired to put any venom in her voice. “They thought I was you. Everybody in bloody _London_ thinks I’m you.”

“Mycroft,” Molly said, turning to face the tall man next to her. She tried to keep her voice calm. “Did you dress me up and take me to that party with all that security because there was some sort of threat?”

He looked at her and she knew it was true. He didn’t even have to say anything, didn’t have to nod. He and his brother had the same goddamn guilty look.

Her hand snapped out without consulting her brain, slapping him hard across the face. He jerked away from her, but too slowly to stop the slap. His security guy was across the room in a few quick steps, putting a hand on Molly’s shoulder and putting himself between her and Mycroft.

“Stand down,” Mycroft muttered irritably, pressing the back side of his hand to his cheek. Everybody else in the room was utterly silent.

“Was she bait.” It came out between clenched teeth, not quite a question.

“No, Molly,” Mycroft said. She’d made him mad; she could hear it in his voice. “I didn’t even know she was in London.”

“Are you telling me that you have my own personal shadow tagging along everywhere, and everywhere _he_ doesn’t go you’re monitoring CCTV—don’t deny it; I know how you operate—but you couldn’t be bothered to keep an eye on the _only_ blood relative I have? And she looks _exactly_ like me?” She was in his face as best she could be. He was taller than Sherlock, and even with the heels he’d bought her she was barely up to his chin.

“There were no travel plans made in her name,” Mycroft said, standing stiffly but refusing to step away. “No hotels booked. We had no reason to think she’d be in London. She hasn’t been in London in nearly twenty years.”

“Who are you?” Ellie asked, voice scratchy but steady. “Why do you know so much about me?”

Mycroft spared Ellie a disdainful look that Molly read to mean “you don’t have the security clearance to merit an answer, you bothersome little goldfish.” She wanted to slap him again.

* * *

Ellie was in hospital for three days. Molly visited every day, but briefly because they always ended up arguing.

DID YOU AT LEAST CATCH THEM? Molly asked Mycroft via text after Ellie had been discharged and was headed back to Glasgow. He didn’t respond, but she wasn’t sure if it was because he hadn’t caught the men who’d attacked Ellie or because he didn’t like to text.

Annie said he was doing actual field work, but Molly wasn’t sure she believed it.

About a month later, Mycroft texted her back, but it had nothing to do with her question. He seemed to be trying to give the impression (without actually confirming anything) that he had gone to bring Sherlock home.

* * *

It was a Thursday. Lunch with Mary, then off to the late shift.

“What happened?” Mary asked before she’d even sat down. Molly couldn’t help but smile.

“That obvious?”

“No,” Mary said. “But I know you.”

“I feel like he’s stifling me,” Molly said. It was truly how she felt. Mary would think she meant she was feeling stifled in her relationship with Tom, and in a way that was true, too. It was just that her relationship with Tom was not at all about romance.

“Bit clingy, is he?”

“It seems like I never get a moment to myself. He’s always _there_.”

They paused a moment to place their orders. Molly looked past their waiter to the table against the wall where Tom had taken up his usual place keeping an eye on her. He had his hair under a ballcap and wasn’t wearing his usual posh getup—not that Mary had met him yet anyway—and doing a remarkable job blending in, as usual.

“Set boundaries. _Enforce_ boundaries,” Mary said, gesturing with her water glass. “You’ve been dating—what?—four months? Five? If it’s like this now…”

Molly nodded, picking up her own water to buy herself time to think what to say. She really had to stop complaining about Tom or Mary was going to start a crusade to get her to ditch a bad boyfriend. Only, since he wasn’t a boyfriend and she couldn’t ditch him, if Molly didn’t change her tune she’d become that person who just wanted to complain about it rather than fixing her relationship.

“How are you and John, then?” Molly asked.

“Good. Really good.” Mary smiled, then winked. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Molly said, smiling back. “At least one of us should be having an easy go of things.”

“Can I tell you something and you won’t tell John I mentioned it?” Mary asked.

“Sure. Yeah.”

“I think he’s going to propose tonight.”

“Really?” Molly smiled. “And we’re happy about that, right?”

“I think so, yeah.” Mary was practically beaming.

“Congratulations ahead of time, then,” Molly said. "You're great together."

“It is great,” Mary said, sighing happily then looking slightly sheepish. “The living together is going well. Things are still really good at work together even with the living together. I really think we could be in it for the long haul.”

“Well thank God for that,” Molly said earnestly. “I’m not sure what I’d do if you two broke up. I could never choose which one of you to keep.”

“Both of us, obviously,” Mary said, grinning again. “We’d have to split custody of you.”

Molly laughed. They chatted, finished their lunches. Mary asked after Ellie (still not speaking to her, but healing up well according to the privacy-violating reports Mycroft’s people had delivered). Mary promised to call in the evening—even if it was late, since Molly would be working into the night anyway—to tell her all about it.

* * *

Her phone rang just after midnight, and Molly was glad for the reprieve. She’d had a pair of little boys brought in near the start of her shift, and the postmortems on them had been difficult.

“We got kicked out of three restaurants tonight,” Mary said the moment Molly picked up. She sounded oddly happy about it. “Three of them.”

“What on Earth for?”

“Well, John was having a bit of a temper after Sherlock turned up,” Mary said.

There was a beat of silence while Molly tried to process that.

“Come again?”

“Sherlock Holmes,” Mary said. Molly could hear the smile. “John was about to propose, I swear he was, and then he looked up at the waiter and it wasn’t a waiter at all.”

“Oh, he didn’t,” Molly said, exasperation warring with amusement. Also a flicker of terror at the base of her gut—Sherlock was back? And John knew about it? And Mary knew that Molly knew that he’d been alive?

“Oh, he _did_.”

“You know, Mycroft sent a very vague text about a month ago and I thought he might be extracting him, but I really thought Sherlock would have the sense to call ahead or something,” Molly said. “I really don’t know why, though.”

“Spill it, then,” Mary said. She still sounded like she was smiling, but it was a serious request. “I don’t have a happy engagement story for you because you helped John’s best friend fake his death. Tell me all about it.”

“Actually, I can’t,” Molly said, biting her lip. She wasn’t supposed to tell Mary—anybody who hadn’t signed an NDA—about her security clearance, so instead she lied: “This isn’t a secure line.”

“Molly Hooper, what _have_ you been up to?” Mary asked. There was that amused tone, though. She sounded curious, not angry.

It was very much a relief that she wouldn’t be losing Mary over this. John probably wouldn’t talk to her for half a year at the least, and who knew where she’d fall in with Sherlock if he really was back, but Mary was with her.

It wasn’t twenty minutes later that Sherlock turned up at Bart’s. Startled her, popping up behind her silent as a ghost. She just smiled at him, assessing for damage—if they’d gotten kicked out of multiple restaurants, chances were John had hit him. He looked alright, though. Maybe a bit stiff.

“Hello,” she said when it didn’t seem like he was going to say anything.

“Hello.”

“Are you back, then?” she asked. “Mary said you’d seen John already.”

“Word travels fast,” he said, eyebrows raising in genuine surprise. “I think I like her.”

He said it like he’d come to that conclusion in spite of himself.

“Good. She’s wonderful,” Molly said honestly. “She’s been exactly what John needed while… you were away.”

“And you’re alright?” he asked, though she was fairly sure he was just being polite. He’d probably been given a copy of Tom’s latest update when he’d returned to London.

“Fine. Well enough.” She wanted to tell him about the little boys in cold storage, but she didn’t. Instead, she asked, “And you’re alright, too?”

He looked well—he’d put on muscle since the last time she’d seen him. But he was keeping that extra-straight posture that usually meant he was either stressed and hiding an emotional reaction, or hurt and trying to keep her from noticing his pain.

So he either wanted a hug but didn’t want to ask for it. Or he’d broken his ribs and didn’t want her to fuss.

“I’m… glad to be back,” he said. And he didn’t just sound like he was being polite that time.

“You’re sticking around, then?” she asked. “Not just popping in to say hello, finally read John into things, then disappear off into the thick of things?”

“I’m back,” he said decisively. “Moriarty’s network has been dismantled, and there are things that need seeing to here. Besides, my name has officially been cleared.”

“Are you going to tell Mrs. Hudson before the press gets wind of things?” Molly asked.

“You’re just asking that because you think I should,” he said, smirking. “You don’t think it would be kind for her to find out from anybody other than me, but you don’t want to outright tell me so.”

“Yes, exactly,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest and maintaining eye contact. “So are you going to tell Mrs. Hudson before the press does?”

“Yes, Molly. I will tell her,” he said. “Tonight.”

“Maybe tomorrow morning,” Molly suggested. “It’s quite late.”

“Yes, I suppose it is.”

There was silence. She’d expected him to turn up his collar and swoop away into the dark corridors of the hospital, but he didn’t. He just stood there. Looking at her.

“I haven’t changed the locks, if you need a place,” Molly said eventually. “I’m only halfway through my shift now.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I think I’ll go to Baker Street, though. There is plenty that needs doing. And that will be a convenient place to be to alert Mrs. Hudson to my continued existence.”

“Right.”

Again, they were quiet.

“Oh, before I forget—what are you doing this weekend?” he asked. He had obviously been at no risk of forgetting; he just hadn’t had a clever segue. “You’re… available?”

“I suppose,” she said. “What do you have in mind?”

“I was hoping you would attend a wedding with me.”

“Oh. Sure.” She frowned. “You have a case already?”

“A cousin.”

“What?”

He sighed, that put-upon sort of sigh usually reserved for Mycroft.

“My cousin is getting married this weekend," he said. "I believe you have this coming Monday off, and I was hoping, if you didn’t have anything planned, you’d come along with me."

“Which cousin?” she asked. “Did I meet them?”

“Yes,” he said. “One of the Williams. William Absalom.”

“Ah.”

“You met the bride-to-be, too. Blanche. You remember her?”

“I don’t think I do. Maybe once I see her face.”

“Mm,” he hummed agreement, and they stood there in silence for a moment again. She wasn’t sure if he’d invited her along for the company, or if it was something else.

“Well. Yes, then,” she said, fidgeting with the hem of her shirt, oddly flustered. “Alright.”

“Thank you, Molly,” he said, ducking in to peck her cheek lightly.

“Are they getting married in London?” she asked. She really hoped she hadn’t just agreed to jet off to Bermuda for the weekend; she did not have anything to wear at a tropical wedding, and that would be so very _Sherlock_.

“France.”

“France?”

“Paris. They’re very cliché.”

“Yes, I suppose it is,” Molly said.

“I will arrange everything. I’ll have a cab waiting to take you to the airport tomorrow—two o’clock. We’ll do whatever you like on Saturday, though I should tell you that my parents would like to take us to dinner that evening. The wedding is Sunday, and I’m afraid it will take the whole day. And we’ll be back in London by tea Monday.”

“Dinner with your parents?”

“Mycroft will avoid the dinner, of course. I believe he’s flying in early Sunday and returning immediately after Mummy’s lowest expectation of attendance is met,” Sherlock said. “I suppose if it’s horrible we can insist he bring us back with him early.”

“I’m sure it won’t be that bad, Sherlock,” she said. They could find out all about Cousin Kath’s chalet.

“The weather is supposed to be good, at least,” he said.

“There you go then,” she said, grinning at him. It was hard not to point out that the last family function he’d taken her along to had actually been fairly enjoyable, at least as far as she was concerned. “A beautiful weekend in Paris. You can spend the whole thing telling me your deductions about your relations.”

He ducked down to bus her on the cheek again.

“Don’t even worry about packing,” he said. He had his phone out, already switching to the next thing on his to-do list. “Mycroft has said he’ll send along Anthea to take care of everything.”

“I can pack my own bag, Sherlock,” she told him.

“It’s his fault either one of us has to go, so it’s the very least he can do.”

And he was gone.


	13. a weekend in Paris

Molly had had a minor row with Annie about the packing. She’d done it herself when she’d gotten home in the wee hours, but Anthea had arrived Friday morning with a list of special requirements and a no-nonsense this-is-my-job sort of look.

Sherlock had said he’d send a cab, but apparently Mycroft’s security detail had overridden it. Her usual driver, Jeff, pulled up in one of the nondescript government cars, smiled at her, took care of her bags, and whisked her off to the airport.

“All set, then?” Sherlock asked, appearing at her elbow the moment she’d gotten out of the car.

“It seems so,” Molly said.

“Excellent.”

Sherlock led the way through the terminal like he owned the place. And of course they were flying first class. And of course the bartender in the lounge knew him.

She fell asleep on the plane. Luckily, it wasn’t a long enough flight for her to drool all over herself.

There was a car waiting for them, sent from the hotel.

“Sherlock,” she said, the thought suddenly dawning on her, “this is going to be one of those incredibly posh sorts of weddings, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” Sherlock said, not looking up from his mobile.

“And we’re staying at an incredibly posh sort of hotel?”

“It is a very _nice_ hotel, Molly,” he said, glancing up to give her an odd look. “And more importantly, an entirely different hotel than most of the other guests will be staying in.”

“Well away from your Cousin Kath?”

“ _Well_ away from Cousin Kath.”

The hotel was all shining marble and crisply uniformed attendants. Molly felt underdressed to even stand in the lobby.

She almost, _almost_ , began to regret agreeing to come along.

The room—the suite—itself was enormous. A spacious sitting room, a sofa and chairs arranged facing a large TV, a kitchenette, etched glass doors that opened onto a private balcony. The ceilings were vaulted. The bathroom had a soaker tub with jets.

It did not escape her notice that there was just the one bedroom, one bed.

That was a conversation they needed to have. Mourning the miscarriage had taken them well outside their normal sort of relationship, especially acknowledging to each other that they both would’ve been glad to have the child. They weren’t just friends. And the sex wasn’t just sex.

“I am going to take _such_ a bath,” Molly said, because she absolutely didn’t want to have that conversation before she was going to be in a different country with him and his family for the weekend.

* * *

After her bath, Molly unpacked. She’d been dreading what Anthea might have put together, but had to concede—if just to herself—that she had probably done a better job pulling together the fancy-wedding-in-Paris look that could be had from Molly’s closet.

The garment bag held her dress for the wedding. Not the one she’d planned to bring. In fact, a strapless gown she’d bought years ago, chickened out wearing it to whatever the event had been, and then shoved it to the back of the closet.

The rest of it was more-or-less what she’d meant to bring, at least. She’d be comfortable walking around the city tomorrow. And she had something nice to wear to dinner with his parents.

And Annie, bless her, had remembered all the needed foundation garments. And her toiletries. And a box of tampons (and even though they probably wouldn’t be needed, Molly was grateful).

Molly put on the sleep shorts and camisole that had been packed for her, cleaned her teeth, then settled down on her side of the bed. She’d intended to read the novel she’d brought along, but Sherlock came in and started unpacking his own things, asking her what she wanted to do with their day.

* * *

In the morning, they went to the Louvre. It seemed wrong not to go, even if they were only in Paris for the weekend.

Instead of joining the queue for the Mona Lisa, they wandered through the less-popular areas. Sherlock knew a surprising amount about art after the Reichenbach case, and he peppered her with trivia.

They had lunch on a café patio, then spent the afternoon on a walking tour of the catacombs beneath the city. The other members of their tour group didn’t appreciate their examination of the skulls and other bones lining the walls, but somehow they managed not to get thrown out.

They returned to the hotel to change for dinner. Anthea had packed her favorite little black dress—it was knee length, fit her well, was ridiculously soft and comfortable, and the skirt had enough flow to it that it was good for dancing.

Molly closed herself in the bathroom to change and touch up her makeup. She had half a mind to leave her hair as it was, but she knew she would feel underdressed if she did, silly as that was. She hesitated, but in the end pulled it into a low side bun—Sherlock had complimented the style before, but he’d wanted to see corpse feet.

She usually wore this particular dress with a colorful cardigan to liven it up, but Anthea hadn’t packed any of them. The dress had three-quarters sleeves and Sherlock had been right about the pleasant weather, but she still felt like she was missing something without the cardigan.

“This one, not that one,” Sherlock said when she stepped out of the bathroom, holding out a necklace for her as he stepped in to remove the necklace she’d been wearing.

“Sherlock, what—” She protested half-heartedly, but, really, she was too used to it to truly complain. As obnoxious as it was, he usually made decent selections.

“Pearls are a classic, as is the ‘little black dress,’” he said, assuming a sardonic sort of pomposity she knew was meant to make her laugh. He put the other necklace back in the little jewelry case while Molly fixed the clasp on the double-strand of pearls he’d handed her. “Plus, this particular necklace looks like a piece from my grandmother’s collection, so there will be the added bonus of watching my mother spend the evening trying to sort out whether I’ve been nicking her jewelry without staring blatantly at your cleavage.”

“Sherlock, _really_ ,” she said, rolling her eyes. He smiled that charming, mischievous smile.

“When one is forced to dine with one’s parents, one must invent one’s own fun,” he said haughtily.

“You know,” she said, ignoring him in favor of examining the necklace, “I don’t think I even remember where I got this necklace.”

“Oh, I absolutely nicked it from my mother,” he said. His smile had gone from mischievous to devilish.

“You’ve been hiding stolen jewelry at my flat?”

“Not just stolen jewelry, stolen _heirloom_ jewelry,” he corrected.

“Sherlock!”

“Oh, relax,” he said, still smiling at her. “She’s never even noticed it was missing.”

“That’s not the point…”

They bickered about it the whole way to the restaurant. It came to light that the pearl necklace was hardly the only item he’d “gifted” her over the years. And that was beside the client gifts she’d known he’d repurposed for her—taking the stones from gifted cufflinks he’d never wear and having them reset as earrings and given to her as casually as lending a ballpoint pen.

“I should bring up the collective lack of boundaries at dinner,” she grumbled.

“You could try,” Sherlock said, smiling again.

They waited at the bar. His parents hadn’t arrived yet and their table wasn’t ready anyway, so they sat and they ordered drinks.

“Oh, don't forget,” Sherlock said, turning to her with a very serious face, “don’t bring up musicals tonight or we’ll never hear the end of it.”

Molly smiled, preparing to tease him, but his mobile rang.

“That’s them,” he said, frowning. He threw back the last swallow of his drink, plastered a smile on his face, and answered. She couldn’t help but smile as she watched him go, walking out of the bar area headed for the front of the restaurant either to find them or to find better reception.

By the time he made it back to her, she was about ready to break the nose of the man who had taken Sherlock’s stool. He’d sat down about a minute after Sherlock left and immediately begun hitting on her, taking no hints that she wanted to be left alone, never letting up.

“Table’s ready,” Sherlock said, holding out his hand to help her off the stool. She didn’t need the help, but she appreciated the gesture—showing the obnoxious man that she was _with_ somebody and should take that _incredibly obvious hint_ and bugger off.

He didn’t.

Molly’s wasn’t familiar with all the latest French euphemisms, but she could follow the vitriol that poured from the man’s mouth well enough. She pursed her lips, squeezed Sherlock’s fingers, and prepared to take the high road and ignore him.

“Frigid cunt,” the man said in English, leaning just a bit closer into her personal space.

Molly blinked. _That escalated rather quickly_.

She looked to Sherlock, expecting him to be raising an eyebrow or impatiently waiting for her to catch up to him. But he was frozen, body utterly rigid. His expression promised violence; she’d never seen that sort of angry stillness on him.

Then he looked to her, meeting her eyes intently, and she realized he was asking her permission to come to her defense. Molly almost smiled, looking forward to seeing his deductions cutting into somebody else for once, and nodded ever so slightly.

Sherlock didn’t deduce the man, though. He punched him in the face.

A single movement, almost quicker than Molly could follow. Sherlock’s arm shot out, his off-hand connecting with the man’s temple, and then he drew back and held the same hand out palm-up waiting for Molly to take it.

“I’m so sorry about that,” Molly said to the bartender, utterly stunned. The woman was smiling, though.

“Don’t worry about it. Really,” she said, winking. “If your man there hadn’t knocked him down, it would’ve been somebody else within the hour. He gets himself chucked out of here once or twice a week.”

“Oh.” Molly wasn’t sure what to say to that. It really didn’t seem like the sort of restaurant that would have belligerent drunks at the bar who regularly had to be tossed out.

“I’ll send along some ice for that hand, yes?” the bartender offered.

“That would be appreciated,” Molly said. “Thank you.”

The bartender waved them off, and Molly finally took Sherlock’s hand. He immediately pulled her close and tucked her arm into his, escorting her out of the bar area and toward the front of the restaurant where she could see his parents waiting with a young hostess.

His parents had seen the whole thing.

Oh, God.

They’d seen what had probably looked like her giving Sherlock permission to throw a punch on her behalf. And she was wearing his grandmother’s pearls.

And. And…

Jesus, she was going to spend the entire weekend fending off the idea that an engagement was imminent. Apparently the extended family thought she’d passed that trial run _years_ ago…

“Hello, Mummy. Dad,” Sherlock said. Like they’d just happened upon each other on the sidewalk.

“Hello, son,” Mr. Holmes said. He looked amused.

“Dear Molly, it’s good to see you again,” Mrs. Holmes said, taking Molly’s hand and giving it a squeeze.

“Hello,” Molly said, smiling, following them to the table. She had no idea what to say.

Molly liked his parents. Siger and Marietta Holmes were… warm.

They were seated. Menus were handed around. Mrs. Holmes ordered a bottle of wine for the table.

Molly looked over at Sherlock, expecting him to have some comment about the wine selection, but he was hiding behind his menu. She could see his knuckles were already red and beginning to swell a bit. Without even thinking about it, she reached over and took his hand in hers, drawing it away from the menu and over closer to her place setting for a better look.

“Well, I hope you weren’t planning to serenade the happy couple,” she said. She felt along the metacarpals, was pleased to note that he hadn’t broken the skin over his knuckles.

“I’m fine,” Sherlock said, but he didn’t try to pull his hand away.

“I’m glad you think so,” Molly said, “but you should still have it x-rayed. I could have Mary put something into John’s schedule for you this week, if you’d like.”

“I don’t think so,” Sherlock said, this time taking his hand back. “He’ll just try to break my nose again.”

“You did rather startle him,” Molly said.

“How would _you_ know?”

“Mary told me.”

“That woman is trouble,” Sherlock said sulkily.

“You’re talking about his old flatmate John Watson, correct?” Mrs. Holmes asked, and Molly immediately felt bad for leaving them out of the conversation.

“Yes, Sherlock just told him about still being alive a few days ago,” Molly said. “He took it rather well on the whole, I think.”

“’Rather well’?” Sherlock echoed, looking at her incredulously. “We got thrown out of _three_ restaurants because he kept attacking me.”

“Yes, only three,” Molly said, smiling at him. “Really, he took it a lot better than I thought he would.”

Sherlock frowned, picking up the menu again, not to hide behind this time but to look it over. Either ignoring her or pretending to. His parents were smiling.

“Mary is John’s fiancée,” Molly said, turning her attention to his parents. Feeling a bit sorry she’d brought it up, she reached over and squeezed his knee beneath the table apologetically. (He didn’t react.) “Or she would be, but Sherlock turned up when John was meaning to propose.”

“She’s a friend of yours, then?” Mrs. Holmes asked. Her eyes had that parental gleam—the one that Molly thought might mean she was imagining double-dates between John and Mary, Molly and Sherlock. Molly tried very hard not to blush.

“Yes. We go to yoga together,” Molly said. “She’s wonderful. They’re great together.”

Sherlock scoffed, but whatever opinion he was about to share was cut off by the arrival of a waiter with their drinks and the promised ice pack for his hand. When he appeared to be planning to ignore it, Molly scowled at him and grabbed his hand again to lay it flat on the table so that she could rest the ice over his knuckles.

They looked over the menu, decided on their orders. The meal passed very quickly after that—they talked about the food, the trip across the Channel, how glad they all were that Sherlock was back with them properly. Molly asked polite questions about the cousin about to be married and was rewarded with more than a few anecdotes from the three of them. By dessert, Sherlock almost seemed to be enjoying himself.

* * *

Molly woke Sunday morning wrapped up in Sherlock. He was a remarkably tactile bedfellow, she’d discovered over the years. Even when they were just sleeping together semi-not-really-platonically, he pulled her close.

It was almost perfect.

“Good morning,” Sherlock murmured. He shifted behind her, preparing to get out of bed, but before he slipped entirely away he planted a kiss on the back of her neck.

“Morning,” she murmured back. All that blissful perfect had slipped away in an instant, replaced by yearning. And possibly a little bit of guilt, because he’d always been very clear where they stood together.

Friends with benefits. They’d had an agreement. Just friends. Sometimes friends with sex. But always just friends

“If I shower first, will you order us something up for breakfast?” he asked. He was rumpled and mussed. She was surprised that he wasn’t complaining about having to rise early, about having _plans_.

“Okay.”

He vanished into the bathroom, and Molly flopped back on the bed. She waited until the water was safely running before she let out the deep groan she’d been holding back.

“Get it together, Molly Hooper,” she muttered to herself.

Luckily, there wasn’t time to linger in bed and fret about their relationship status (or lack thereof). She called down to room service for breakfast, got the things together she’d need in the bathroom. She’d mostly finished her breakfast by the time Sherlock got out of the bathroom, stepping out mostly dressed for the wedding.

“Pastries and coffee,” she said, gesturing to the tray on the dresser.

“Excellent.”

Molly closed herself into the bathroom after she’d gulped down the last of her coffee. She hadn’t exactly been dreading the dress, but she certainly wasn’t looking forward to it. She’d bought the thing; she knew she looked good in it. She just felt like she wasn’t quite the right sort of person for that sort of dress, though.

It was dark blue, strapless. A bit hi-low in that the hem in front was an inch or so higher than in the back, making it easier to walk around and also showing off her shoes. When she’d bought the dress, she’d intended to wear some sort of funky, colorful shoes; Anthea had packed her nude pumps.

It reminded her just enough of the black Christmas dress she’d worn to the party that she dreaded what Sherlock would have to say about it.

She showered, brushed her teeth, dried her hair. She spent a moment with a comb and the travel-size can of hairspray working her hair into a loose French braid with a bit of volume on top. It wasn’t too elaborate, a style she’d worn to plenty of friends’ weddings over the years.

God, she hated how self-conscious this whole thing was making her.

She didn’t wear much makeup. The intent with the dress had been to have a bright lipstick that would coordinate with her funky shoes, but, again, Anthea had had other ideas. Nude pumps, natural shades in the cosmetics. It was probably more in line with a posh wedding, anyway.

There were a few full-length mirrors just outside the bathroom, and Molly put them to use, inspecting herself from every angle. If she was going to spend the day with fancy people attempting to blend in, she was going to check and triple-check that everything was in its proper place.

“You look beautiful,” Sherlock said.

“Sherlock!” She laughed nervously. “You startled me.”

“Didn’t mean to.”

“And thank you, “she said, recovering. “Annie packed the dress. I’d forgot I had it, actually.”

“It looks very nice.”

She looked over at him, suddenly shy. He sounded… sincere.

“Thank you.”

There was an odd moment, unsaid things hovering around them. Molly wasn’t quite sure _what_ was going unsaid that was making things odd, fraught—there were so many possibilities—so she simply stepped into her shoes, gaining a few inches.

“You look very handsome, yourself,” she said honestly, smiling at him.

He was in a light charcoal tailcoat, ivory waistcoat, crisp white shirt. His tie was dark blue, not an exact match to her dress but close enough that she knew that Anthea had planned it.

“I have something for you,” he said, turning abruptly to the wardrobe on his side of the bed. “I texted Mummy after Anthea told me what she was bringing for you to wear. She says she’s happy to have you wear them for the wedding.”

Molly crossed to see what he’d thought of this time. She’d expected an antique fascinator, or something on those lines. Instead, he opened a jewelry box and showed her a pair of beautiful chandelier earrings.

“Oh, Sherlock, I can’t wear those!” she said. They were probably worth more than she made in a year. Some sort of family heirloom; they seemed the sort of thing posh grandmothers would hold in reserve for only their favorites.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Molly,” he said, handing her the jewelry box and turning to the nearest mirror to begin tying his tie. “Mummy brought them especially for you.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, timid. She’d already pulled the first one out of its place, though. She held it up to her ear without putting it on, admiring how the long line of the earring made her neck look longer, elegant.

“Of course I’m sure.”

And that was the matter settled.

* * *

“I will give you ten pounds right now if you join in,” Molly said, turning to Sherlock and grinning.

When they’d arrived, all of the cousins had swooped in, shaking hands and seeming to almost enjoy it _more_ because Sherlock was such a predictably bad sport about it. There had also been heartfelt hellos between them all, hugs, introductions. Just so much damned genuine warmth it made Molly miss her dad, and also be very glad that Sherlock had invited her along to be a small part of it all.

“Absolutely not,” Sherlock said.

“Sherlock has been a spoilsport about it since he was seven years old,” Mr. Holmes said, making a long, mournful face at his younger son.

“Twenty pounds,” Molly said.

“I know for a fact that you don’t have any cash on you,” Sherlock said. He was looking away from her at the crowd of family swirling to greet a new arrival, haughty.

“Oh, this one’s me,” Mr. Holmes (Alexander Siger Bradley Holmes) said, patting his wife’s knee as he got to his feet to join the press of them. Sherlock rolled his eyes.

“How about if I promise to take video of it and send it to Mary,” Molly said, grinning when Sherlock turned to pin her with a look.

“Why in the world would _that_ be an incentive?” he asked.

“Because,” Molly said, smiling broader still; she’d come up with a plan, “Mary will show it to John. And it will make John smile. And if you can make John smile, he’s that much closer to forgiving you for pretending to be dead for two years and then waltzing in and ruining both his dinner at a fancy restaurant _and_ his romantic proposal.”

Sherlock frowned, narrowed his eyes at her. But then he seemed to give in.

“Fine,” he sighed, sinking back into his seat petulantly.

Molly beamed at him.

“Oh, well done,” Mrs. Holmes murmured in her ear, and Molly turned to share a smile with the older woman.

A moment later, Mycroft (Alexander Mycroft Chad Holmes) joined them, Mr. Holmes following just behind. Mycroft looked distinctly sour, but Mr. Holmes was still smiling.

“Hello, Mummy. Molly,” Mycroft said, leaning in to kiss his mother’s cheek.

“Hello, Mycy, how are you?” Mrs. Holmes asked, fussing with his collar. “How was your flight in?”

“It was fine,” Mycroft said, shooing her hands away.

“Looks like I’m up,” Sherlock said, straightening his waistcoat before he plastered an idiotic smile on his face and joined the flock of Wiliiams.

“What on Earth is he doing?” Mycroft asked, face twisted in disgust. Mr. Holmes looked equally mystified, but Mrs. Holmes was trying to stifle a laugh behind her hand.

“Molly talked him into it,” she said.

“ _Why_?” Mycroft asked, turning the disgusted look to Molly. She just smiled at him, taking out her mobile to capture the video.

Sherlock’s cousins were confused at first, exchanging looks that said they’d been mocked by Sherlock before, but they seemed to come to the consensus that they wouldn’t let him ruin their fun.

“Hello, William. Hello, William,” they chorused. Hands were shaken. One of them kept calling, “Bill!” like he’d come upon somebody unexpectedly at a Tesco.

Sherlock made a grand show of it, spinning from cousin to cousin. His smile looked almost genuine.

Molly sent the video off to Mary before Sherlock could view it and change his mind about sharing it.

* * *

The wedding was just as surprisingly lovely as dinner with his parents had been.

The ceremony wasn’t excessively long. The luncheon was utterly delicious. The best man gave a heartfelt and blessedly short speech. Through it all, Sherlock whispered little deductions to her, filling her in on family history in an endless undertone. Occasionally, Mycroft would jump in with corrections and contradictions.

Then the dancing. The couple had hired a twenty-piece band for the day, and they were very good. They played all sorts of big band and jazz music, with the occasionally cover of more recent popular hits. She hadn’t even known that Sherlock danced until he’d kept her out on the floor for a solid hour; he didn’t seem to be thinking of taking a break until she begged off, telling him she had to take her shoes off for a bit or she just might die.

“You will not die because your shoes are uncomfortable,” he said, scowling at her. But he followed her away from the dance floor.

He left her at a table, and she thought for a moment he’d abandoned her, but then he returned with drinks.

“You are the best wedding date,” she told him earnestly. He’d brought her a bottle of water _and_ a glass of wine. She downed half the water, then returned to rubbing her feet.

“Really?” he asked, seeming startled. “I wasn’t trying to be.”

“Just take the compliment,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Thank you,” he said robotically, and it made her smile.

“Really, though,” she said, sitting up. Her feet were throbbing, but there was nothing for it. Things would be better in the morning; she’d just have to press on until then. “Thank you for bringing me along. This has been really fun.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said. She couldn’t detect a hint of irony, nor did he seem to be trying to charm cadavers out of her. He’d finished his water and moved on to his wine. “My parents like you. My brother likes you. You’re easy to talk to. You like to dance.”

“I like your parents, too. And Mycroft,” she said, smirking at him when he shot her a mockingly appalled look. “And I very much like to dance.”

“Speak of the devil,” Sherlock murmured. A second later, Mycroft appeared at their table.

“Dance with me?” Mycroft asked, holding his hand out. Molly raised her eyebrows. “Please?”

“What, really?” Molly asked, trying not to giggle. “I didn’t know _either_ of you danced!”

“Mummy is going to make me keep Aunt Cecily company unless I ‘find some other way to be involved in the party,’” he said.

“She isn’t going to expect _me_ to talk to Aunt Cecily, is she?” Sherlock asked. He scanned the room like he was looking for exits that his mother wouldn’t be able to see.

“No. You’ve brought a _girl_ to the party, and Mummy likes her,” Mycroft said. He moved his hand a bit, indicating that he was still waiting for Molly to take it.

“I will dance with you only if you promise to stop talking about me like I’m not sitting right here,” Molly said, taking his hand and using it to help her balance while she slipped her shoes back on.

“Apologies,” Mycroft said, though he didn’t sound the least bit sorry.

And then she was back to dancing. Mycroft danced like he’d had a good teacher and had memorized all the perfectly correct steps and things from a book. Where Sherlock knew all the steps to anything the band played and danced along like he was having a grand time, Mycroft danced like he was trying to win something.

Mr. Holmes cut in after a few songs, sweeping her around with practiced ease. Then Sherlock.

It was dark by the next time she got a proper break. There was cake and more wine. She found herself at a table with the four of them, the bride, one of the Cousin Williams (she thought he might be the one that went by Ed), Cousin Kath, Auntie Maribel, and second-cousin Wilhemina (who was twelve).

* * *

“That was all so lovely,” Molly said as the cab pulled up in front of their hotel. It was well after midnight, and she was blissfully exhausted. “But I am _so_ tired.”

Sherlock hummed agreement as he got out of the cab, then walked around to open her door for her and offer her a hand out.

“Oh, thank you,” she said, letting herself be tucked into his side once they’d paid the fare. The doorman held the door for them, and Sherlock tipped him.

“I cannot wait to sleep,” Sherlock said.

“Oh, sleep,” she said. “Sleep is going to be _wonderful_.”

She took her heels off while they waited for the elevator, trying not to dance around like a nervous horse when the blood went rushing back into places that had been numb for hours.

“You’re very short now,” Sherlock said, frowning down at her.

“I’m always short,” she told him. “Especially compared to you. You’re a giant.”

“I am not,” Sherlock said, affronted. “Mycroft is taller.”

“Mycroft’s a giant, too.”

“No, he’s… something else.”

“Hm,” Molly said, nodding. She knew what he meant.

They were both still a little bit drunk.

“The British government!” Sherlock said, remembering the word he’d been looking for. “That’s what he is. He’s not a giant, he’s the British government.”

“Well. The British government’s pretty giant,” Molly observed.

“That is very true, I suppose,” Sherlock said thoughtfully. Then he turned that dashing smile on her. “You’re very clever, Molly.”

“Thank you.” She was probably blushing.

When they made it back to the room, they immediately set about getting ready for bed. It was a comfortable sort of routine between them, weaving around each other as they hung up their things, shared the sink, hunted down pajamas.

“Really, Sherlock,” Molly said earnestly when they were ready to turn the lights off. She’d taken a seat on the edge of the bed while he fiddled with something in his suitcase. “I’m really glad you invited me along. It’s nice to be allowed a glimpse of happy family things every once in a while.”

“As I’ve said, you are more than welcome to borrow them whenever you’d like,” he said, walking over to her, then leaning down and pecking her on the lips like it was the most normal thing in the world between them. “They drive me batty most of the time.”

“That’s how family works,” Molly said, scooting backwards until she could lean against the headboard next to where he’d sat down.

“Do you ever think about starting a family?” he asked after just long enough that she’d wondered if they were done talking.

“Starting a family?” she asked, playing for time. Thinking about the baby they’d lost usually set a dull sort of ache somewhere deep, but for some reason it wasn’t there this time.

“Yes. Having a baby?”

“I know what ‘starting a family’ means,” she said, throwing him a look.

“I know between us we have our own patched together family,” Sherlock said, musing without really listening to her input it seemed. “Mrs. Hudson and John. Mary now, I guess. You. Me. Lestrade. Mycroft. Harry.”

Molly smiled at him, because it was sweet that he included her in his list. She was close with Mary and John and Greg, certainly. Friendly with Mrs. Hudson and Mycroft. She’d never once met John’s sister, though.

“Do _you_ think about starting a family?” she asked him. “Having a baby?”

“Sometimes.”

She’d been fidgeting with the sheet, but she looked up at him then. The intensity of that single word.

His face was closed-off, thoughtful, as he pulled back the blankets and slid into bed. Molly shimmied around and got herself tucked in as well, then rolled over so that she faced him. Sherlock turned out the light, then there was a moment of quiet shuffling while Sherlock got himself comfortable.

Molly had just closed her eyes, trying to let the waves of sleep that had been chasing her since they’d left the wedding wash over her, when Sherlock stretched out an arm and pulled her close, tucking her against his body. She fit against him as natural as breathing after so long sharing a bed. Head tucked under his chin, arm folded over his ribs, legs tangled with his. His arms wrapped around her, holding her close but not too tight.

She fell asleep almost instantly.

* * *

She woke in the pitch dark of night. Sherlock was trembling; it was like his _skin_ was quivering under her cheek. He let out a soft whimper, and that was when she realized it wasn’t a medical emergency, it was a nightmare.

“Sherlock,” she said softly, soothingly. She reached up to touch his face, moving sweat-dampened curls off his forehead, tracing his cheek. “Sherlock, you’re alright.”

The shaking stopped and his eyes snapped open, his arms reflexively tightening around her.

“You’re alright,” she repeated. “You’re home. Well. You’re not home, we’re in Paris. But you’re safe.”

That brought an almost-smile to his face.

“’Course I’m safe,” he said, voice muzzy with sleep. “You’re here.”

“Right,” she said. “Exactly.”

She had butterflies in her stomach. It was like all those times in the lab when he’d swept in being attractive, and she’d been reduced to a stuttering mess of an infatuated woman. She hated that feeling. She especially hated it when they were lying in bed together, wrapped up in each other’s arms.

Sherlock interrupted her inner turmoil by leaning in and kissing her. A long, slow kiss that grew more heated the longer it went on. She knew she should push him away. It wasn’t just friends with benefits anymore, not for her.

She didn’t, though.

Molly lay back, arms wrapped around Sherlock to bring him with her so that she could keep kissing him. He groaned low into her mouth, and Molly’s fingers scrabbled against his back until she managed to pull his t-shirt up so she could take it off him.

He sat back to toss the shirt away, then fell on her again. He kissed down her throat, pulled down the (already quite low) neckline of her camisole so that his lips could tease a nipple. Molly writhed beneath him, fingers weaving into his hair.


	14. the one person that mattered most

Molly was tired and conflicted by work Tuesday morning. She went through the usual battery of lab work and autopsies thinking back to the hours in the middle of the night in Paris.

It was such a cliché to be stuck on, too. _That night in Paris_. It was like a bad romcom.

Molly sighed, earning herself another sideways look from Sanjay. Her mobile ringing saved her from him finally deciding to ask her what was going on.

“Hello?” The number wasn’t in her contacts.

“Hi. I’m calling for Molly Hooper?”

“This is she.”

“Hi, Ms. Hooper. I’m a nurse at St. Bart’s. I’m calling because you’re listed as the emergency contact for Mr. Holmes?”

“Oh. Right.” She hadn’t known he’d listed her as his emergency contact. She’d assumed it would be Mycroft. Or John. Maybe it had been John but he’d changed it because John had thought he was dead. “Is he okay? What’s going on?”

“We need you to come in, if that’s at all possible,” the nurse said.

“I’m already here,” Molly said. She covered the mic with her hand and told Sanjay, “A friend of mine was just admitted upstairs and apparently I’m his emergency contact. I’ll be back soon as I can, okay?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

She hurried out of the lab, headed for the elevator.

“You’re already here?” the nurse asked.

“Yes. I work here,” Molly said. The elevator dinged.

“Oh.” There was a long pause. “Well, I guess I don’t need to tell you where the security desk is. Could you just come to the third floor, then? Nurse’s station.”

“I’ll be right there. Thank you.”

She dropped her phone in her pocket, then stuck her hands in as well to keep herself from fidgeting, biting her nails, anything like that. She had half a mind to call John even if Sherlock hadn’t had him listed, but she felt like she should at least check in with the nurse first and find out what was going on.

The door dinged again, letting her out in the staff area on the third floor. Doctors and nurses bustled around, some leading patients as well. It was always strange to remember just how many people were around the hospital; her own corner of it was so quiet sometimes.

“Hi,” Molly said when she found the nurse’s station. “I’m Molly Hooper. I just had a call—”

“Yes, Dr. Hooper. Hi,” the nurse said. The same voice from the phone. “I’m Claire. If you’ll just follow me?”

Claire led her down a different hall and around a corner. There was a man in a suit standing guard outside one of the doors, and Molly just knew that that was their destination.

“ID?” the guard asked, his hand up to stop Molly; apparently he’d already checked the nurse on a different visit.

“My ID is in my bag in my office—I have my staff badge?” Molly said, unclipping it from her lapel to hand over. He frowned, but then almost seemed to smile.

“Oh. Afternoon, Missus. Go on in.”

“Thanks,” Molly said, taking her badge back and refusing to look either of them in the eye. She’d really have to talk to the Holmes boys about getting their people to give her a new code name; it was just awkward.

To her surprise, it wasn’t Sherlock in the bed on the other side of the door. Mycroft Holmes was almost as pale as the sheets

“Oh,” Molly said before she could stop herself.

“Yes, hello, Molly,” Mycroft said. He was mostly propped upright by pillows.

“Are you—What’s—?” She couldn’t think of which question to ask first, looking back and forth between him and Claire. Mycroft sighed heartily.

“My appendix,” he said. “I’m fine now.”

“The surgery went well,” Claire said, nodding, but her expression said that she didn’t exactly agree that he was ‘fine.’ “And he is well enough to be released. However. He has to have somebody with him. If he wants to sign himself out of the hospital, he’s going to have to wait another day.”

“And so you called me,” Molly said, catching up. She had to try very hard not to smile at Mycroft.

“Yes,” he said, teeth gritted. She gave up trying and smiled at him. He rolled his eyes.

“Alright, then. Give me a moment to tell my boss what’s going on and I’ll sign your paperwork.”

Claire nodded and left the room to get the forms.

“You don’t have to leave work,” Mycroft said. It was almost amusing to watch him go for his usual level of haughtiness from the recumbent position on the bed. “I just need you to sign the forms.”

“Well, that’s not going to happen,” Molly said, crossing her arms. “I can’t in good conscious sign you out and leave you to your own devices. I’m a doctor, you know.”

“You work in a morgue.”

“So I know very well what can happen when people recovering from surgery try to go back to their lives as usual too soon.”

Mycroft scowled at her.

“I’ll sign you out and see you settled wherever you want to be. Baker Street? Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson would love to fuss over you,” Molly suggested. His scowl deepened, and he almost seemed to be blushing as well. It made her smile. “Or I can get you to your own home, and then tell Annie what she’ll need to keep an eye out for.”

“That would be much preferred,” he said, though it still came out between gritted teeth.

“That’s what we’ll do, then.”

Molly called Mike to tell him what had happened. He tried to get her to take the rest of the day and tomorrow off as well to take care of her friend, but she told him she didn’t need it—she’d just take the afternoon to get him settled.

“There,” Molly said when it was sorted. She’d signed all the forms while she was on the phone. “Would you prefer the nurse help you dress, or should we have your guard come in?”

“I can do it myself,” Mycroft said, but the effort of just swinging his legs over the side of the bed had him wincing.

“Claire, would you—?” Molly asked, looking to the nurse. She smiled that long-suffering smile and stepped in to help him. Molly stepped outside to give him his privacy. She chatted a bit with the guard—Miles—while she waited.

“Here we go,” Claire said. She’d put Mycroft in a wheelchair, and he didn’t look any happier about _that_ than he had about needing help to dress.

“I’ll meet you out front, alright?” Molly said, more to Miles than Mycroft. If it were up to Mycroft, he’d leave her behind. “I just need to grab my things from downstairs.”

“Yes, Missus,” Miles said.

Molly shot a look at Mycroft, but he looked too tickled by it to even bother talking about it.

* * *

Mycroft’s home was beautiful. (She'd been too concerned about Sherlock the last time she'd been there to really notice.) Lots of wood paneling. It smelled a bit like lemon wood polish, but in a good way. It also looked like his inner child had been allowed to decorate—he’d given in to the romantic idea of what a fancy government official’s home should be. There were old oil paintings and authentic suits of armor.

Molly called Anthea on the drive over, so his assistant already had things in order by the time they arrived. Molly would’ve preferred he went straight to bed, but Mycroft insisted on working.

“Let me know if he overdoes it,” Molly told Anthea after they’d gone over the rest of it. She wasn’t truly worried—he was in good hands with Anthea, and help would be quick with his security detail and a car always at the ready anyway—but it didn’t hurt to say it. Really, she had a sneaking suspicion that part of the reason she’d been listed as his contact was because she cared. Even if he was as obnoxious as his brother. “I’ve got his mum’s cell number, and I don’t work for him so he can’t threaten to fire me if I call her.”

Technically, she worked for Lady Smallwood. Most of the time that just seemed like it was on paper, though. Either way, if he got it in his head to threaten to fire her she could just tell his mum on him about that, too.

“You wouldn’t,” Mycroft said, glaring. But she thought he sounded pleased.

“Don’t overdo it, and you won’t have to find out,” Molly said. Anthea laughed.

* * *

Molly checked on him the next day after work. She hadn’t been entirely sure he’d be home (though he absolutely _should_ be), or if his security people would let her through. But he was, and they did.

“You’re doing alright?” she asked. He seemed to be—though it definitely looked like he’d tried to push things and ended up tiring himself out. Anthea had pointed her through to his kitchen, where Mycroft was in a matched set of silk pajamas, striped robe belted over top, padded slippers on his feet.

“I’m fine,” he said. She noted that he and Sherlock had the same defensive sort of tone when they’d been caught doing something not quite right.

“Good.” She took the tea things from him and shooed him over to the bar stools at the kitchen island, finishing the preparations for him.

“Now that that’s sorted, are you staying long?”

Despite his snide tone, Molly had stayed for several hours. They’d played board games. They hadn’t talked much, but it had been a nice time. She’d beat him at chess again.

When she finally left, it was quite late and she was ready to fall into bed. Luckily, Mycroft had been feeling hospitable and had had Anthea call his car around to take her home so she didn’t have to wait for Tom to show up to escort her on the Tube.

* * *

A few days later, Molly met Mary for their usual mid-week lunch. She got there first, getting them a table and ordering their usual drink, then sat staring into nothing, spinning the new ring on her finger.

“That’s a new ring on a significant finger,” Mary said rather than ‘hello,’ plopping herself down in the other chair and grinning at her.

“Yes, it is,” Molly agreed, holding out her hand so they could both look at it.

It was a nice ring. Not so big that it got caught on things—that had been a legitimate part of the thought process in choosing that particular ring for her. The practicality of it.

If one had to have a fake engagement ring, it may as well be a practical thing.

“Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s great,” Molly said, though she knew that her tone didn’t reflect the words she’d said. When she looked up from her engagement ring to Mary, it was clear Mary wasn’t buying it.

“What happened?”

“I thought we were going to break up,” Molly said. Actually, she had thought since Sherlock was back she’d be able to tell a story about a grand finale sort of fight and be done lying about Tom, but she’d been wrong. A car had turned up and delivered her to a meeting with Lady Smallwood, and on the other end of it her security detail would be in-house full time and she’d be telling people they were engaged as a cover. “We went out for dinner. I thought it was going to be _that_ talk. But it wasn’t. It was actually great. We ate dinner, we went for a walk by the river. It was a beautiful night; the moon was full. I wanted to be annoyed about the dog thing, but that damn puppy is just too adorable.”

“Tom or the dog?”

“Very funny.”

Molly looked down at the ring again, spinning it on her finger a few more times.

The story she’d been building up around Tom was getting a bit too extensive so far as cover stories went. Particularly because Mary was the one she told most of it to, and Mary was the caring sort of friend that put effort into remembering the details.

“He’s everything I wanted, offering me everything I wanted. _Excited_ to be offering me everything I wanted.”

“But you’re not excited.”

“I think I am?”

“Molly…”

“Honestly, I think I’m in shock,” she said. “I thought we were breaking up.”

* * *

She hadn’t heard a thing from Sherlock since the airport after the wedding. She had, in fact, been debating whether to call and warn him Lady Smallwood had her security detail living with her just in case he decided to turn up the way he did. And then he called her; he knew it was her day off, because of course he did, and he invited her over.

Tom drove her. There was a brief contest of wills, but he agreed to leave her at Baker Street. If Sherlock could spend two years by himself in the field he could act as her bloody chaperone.

“You wanted to see me?” she said, not even bothering to take her coat off. He was dressed but wearing his dressing gown, so he was more likely to ask her how long it would take to boil the flesh off a human hand than suggest they spend the afternoon in his bedroom.

“Yes!” he said. “Molly.”

“Yes?”

“Would you—would you like to solve crimes?” he asked.

“—have dinner?” she filled in, then had to give him a look. “What?”

In all the years she’d known him, he’d never once asked her along on his consulting. Asked for her help hundreds of times, never asked for her presence.

Surprisingly, it went well. It was strange to see things in situ, but it was fascinating to watch him work. He was missing John—at one point, he called her “John.” But a good day nonetheless.

At the end of it, he asked her if she wanted chips. There was a place where the owner gave him extra portions, apparently.

“What, did you get him off a murder charge?”

“Nope. Helped him put up some shelves.”

“Sherlock,” she said, because he was being charming and endearing and it really had been a great day out and about together.

“Hm?”

“What was today about?”

“Saying ‘thank you.’”

“For what?”

“For what you did for me.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “It was my pleasure.”

“No,” he said, almost sharply, “I mean it.”

“I didn’t mean it was a pleasure, I mean I didn’t mind. I wanted to.”

“Moriarty slipped up. He made a mistake,” Sherlock said. He’d stopped at the foot of the stairs, speaking—not _earnestly_ , but at least baldly. “Because the one person he thought didn’t matter at all to me was the one person that mattered the most. You made it all possible.”

She didn’t know what to say to that.

“You can’t do this again, can you?” he said, and she realized why he was standing so still. Why he wasn’t sounding earnest. He was deliberately withholding emotion, keeping himself back from the conversation.

Or perhaps he truly didn’t feel anything. If the day with him had highlighted anything it had was how good he was at manipulating people—pushing just the right buttons to get the reactions that would give him the answers he needed (whether that was outing a cheating husband or “consoling” the catfished step-daughter).

“I had a lovely day,” she said. “I’d love to. I just… um.”

The truth was that she’d been flirting with the idea of falling completely in love with him for a long time. Spending days with him, watching him think, watching him work, enjoying the little moments between it all… It would be too hard. He didn’t want that sort of relationship, no matter the look he gave her when it was dark and they were both thinking about what might have been with the baby.

He was smiling that gentle smile. The honest one. The one that made her angry about all the false ones he used.

Then he stepped in, kissed her cheek, and walked out the door. It was goodbye; she knew it was. Whatever mess she’d turned the stupid friends with benefits arrangement into was over. He wouldn’t take her along to any more family weddings. She wouldn’t call him up at dusk on the evenings she knew he didn’t have a case on.

She followed him out, watched him walk away.

There was something so _fraught_ in all of it. She knew he was at ends—John wasn’t speaking to him and he didn’t know what to do about it, and their relationship had ended up so much more complicated than before.

_God, I really hope he’s not off to find heroin or something_ , she thought. _Just how did he meet that chip shop owner and come to be helping with the shelves?_

* * *

Mary texted her the next day, cancelling their usual lunch. Neither she nor John had gone into work because somebody had drugged John, kidnapped him, planted him in a Guy Fawkes fire, and Mary and Sherlock had barely arrived in time to pull him out.

Sherlock’s latest case—the one with the man disappearing on the train was involved, but it was bigger than just that; she hadn’t gotten the full story—broke, and Mary decided they’d all have a get-together at Baker Street. John and Sherlock were talking again, Mary wanted to meet Mrs. Hudson properly, and she'd suggested it would be a good time to introduce Tom to everybody.

“You’ve already met all his friends,” Mary pointed out. “Only fair he has to meet yours.”

“Yes, alright,” Molly had said. “But you just know Sherlock is going to be awful. He always is. Especially with new people.”

Mary had just smiled, but Molly figured that was because she was still getting to know Sherlock herself.

It actually wasn’t horrible. There were a few looks at first, because everyone could see that Tom looked a bit like Sherlock, but mostly it went well. There was champagne and Mrs. Hudson had made those little finger sandwiches. Tom and Greg chatted semi-awkwardly about football while Sherlock and John went to talk to the press.


	15. the best man

Molly took her time in the shower, enjoying the little flares of soreness all over her body. The stinging of the water against the places where her skin was just a bit too raw.

Sherlock had never been like that before. The others had left, but he’d held her back—hardly unusual—and then he’d sent Tom away for the night. Once the doors between them and the world had been locked, he’d drawn her down the hall to the bedroom

Molly smiled, shutting off the shower and doing her best to wring the water out of her hair before she reached for the towel.

Her skin was a patchwork of the night before. It had started with a deep, mind-bending kiss, and only gotten better.

He’d left a lovebite on the right side of her neck, and three more along her collarbone beneath it. There was another on her left shoulder, low enough that it was almost more the top of her breast than her shoulder. He’d left a bite mark on the inside of her left breast, just beside the nipple, that she might’ve been able to use as forensics to identify him if she’d been so inclined. There was another bite on her back, high on her right shoulder blade. And scratches from his fingernails; he hadn’t broken the skin, but he’d left irritated lines behind. There was another lovebite on the inside of her right thigh. Her thighs and hips and waist were speckled with small bruises from his fingertips.

She’d left her own marks on him, once he’d started it. (They’d been careful before never to leave much of a trace, but if he was giving up on that she was more than willing to join him.) Her own fingerprints, her own lovebites. Not quite to the extent that he’d left, but he certainly hadn’t been the only one claiming territory.

Molly dried off, wrapping a towel around her body and another around her hair. She felt marvelously shagged out.

He’d made her come with his fingers first, before they’d even got their clothes off. Then she’d come with his cock buried deep in her. Then, he’d pulled her back to his chest and held her, one hand wrapped around her holding her close while the other trailed over her skin, slowly arousing her all over again until she was writhing against him, coming with his fingers buried in her quim again. Then he’d had her on her hands and knees, fingers still slick from her probing the way, then his cock… they’d only tried anal the one time before and it had been mediocre at best, but this time had been somehow different, much more satisfying.

They’d lain together, bed a mess, pillows on the floor, bodies cooling—her with his semen leaking out of all sorts of orifices—and laughed. They’d been exhausted. A sweaty mess. She’d rolled over on top of him, lying with her front pressed to the smooth plane of his back, enjoying the warmth of him against her over-sensitized nipples, and lazily sucked her own mark into the skin at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, trying desperately not to fall asleep.

She’d just about drifted off, draped across him like a blanket, when he’d slid out of bed and pulled her along into the shower. They’d stood in the water together, kissing lazily, letting the water rinse away the mess. They’d eventually washed a bit when the water started to run cold, and Sherlock had retrieved fresh sheets from the linen cupboard before they returned to his room.

It had been so strangely invigorating to stand in the doorway to his bedroom, completely starkers, watching him make up the bed (in the nude) in the dead of night.

They’d crawled into bed, nestled together like they always did, and she’d fallen asleep with the gentle whoof of his breath in her ear.

Sherlock had woken her at dawn. He had the inquest about the incident with the rigged carriage in the Tube, but wanted to be sure she didn’t leave before he got back. It had been somewhere between an invitation and an order—“I’ll be home by 11. Be here when I get back?”—and it had been accompanied by slow, gentle morning sex that was dangerously close to making love.

And here she was. She’d let herself fall back to sleep after he’d gone, the lovebite she’d left on his neck carefully covered by his collar. She didn’t have to work until late, an overnight shift at the lab; she could laze about in the sheets that smelled deliciously of him all morning. She might even wait for him in bed, stay naked and relax back against the headboard until he came looking for her.

But there was Mrs. Hudson. Molly could already hear her bumping around downstairs—it was her usual habit when she thought Sherlock was having a bit too much of a lie-in and was about to bring him breakfast and throw open all the doors to be sure he was really just sleeping in and not shooting himself full of drugs.

Most of the time, it was wonderful that Mrs. Hudson looked in on Sherlock like that. When Molly wanted to sprawl naked across his bed, it was less convenient.

It was why they usually did this sort of thing at _her_ place. Even if she had a weird security detail flatmate cockblock at the moment.

Molly hadn’t planned to stay, so she didn’t have anything to change into. Yesterday’s clothes were a wrinkled mess at best. And she was fairly certain there was a very particular sort of smudge on the thigh of her trousers.

Molly found some of Sherlock’s pajamas and put them on. She had to roll up the cuffs on the bottoms half a dozen times, and the t-shirt could’ve been a nightie all by itself, but it was all soft and comfortable and so big on her that Mrs. Hudson probably wouldn’t suspect she’d spent the night being thoroughly ravished. Hopefully.

Molly opened the bedroom window, even if the air was a bit too cold for it. The room reeked of sex.

Her mobile had ended up in the tangle of clothes on the floor. She hadn’t missed much. Mary had texted, asking if she wanted to go wedding dress shopping the next time they had a day off at the same time. A missed call from SPAM LIKELY. And, most important, a trio of texts from Tom saying that he was being reassigned; with the terrorist threat put to bed, it had been determined that she didn’t need live-in security any longer.

Mrs. Hudson was on her way up the stairs, humming happily to herself.

Molly dashed into the bathroom, checking to be sure all the lovebites were covered. Not even close. The one on the side of her neck stood out like she was a teenager who’d spent the night necking in her boyfriend’s car. Cursing, Molly hurried back into the bedroom to get her hands on one of his dressing gowns. She made the bed, too. And dumped all the clothes she’d worn the day before into his hamper.

“Morning!” Mrs. Hudson called cheerfully from the kitchen. Molly could clearly hear the ceramic click of cups and saucers as Mrs. Hudson fussed. It smelled like there was real breakfast, too. “Sherlock, are you up? It’s almost 10!”

“Morning, Mrs. H,” Molly said, pulling the dressing gown around her so that the collar rode high on her neck, tying it off to keep it in place. “Sherlock’s at that inquest thing this morning.”

“Oh, Molly! Hello, dear. Good morning.”

If Mrs. Hudson was surprised to see her, she did a very good job of hiding it.

“Can I have the tea since he’s not here?” Molly asked, smiling.

“Of course. Sit down. Eat this, since he won’t,” Mrs. Hudson said. She fussed, setting a plate of food in front of Molly and then taking a seat across from her, sipping her own tea while Molly started eating. “An inquest today, you said?”

“Yes. He said he’ll be back in another hour or so,” Molly said.

Mrs. Hudson nodded and took a piece of toast, setting it on a plate and then realizing she hadn’t brought the jam out. She returned to the table with the jam in hand, but frowning.

“Are those _toes_ in there?” Mrs. H asked. Molly did her best not to laugh.

“I’m afraid so,” she said.

“What in the world does he need so many severed toes for?”

“Experiments,” Molly said. A chuckle escaped. She’d brought him two toes a few days ago, then several more when he’d had a thought after the initial testing and experimenting had been done. It had all been quite interesting, actually. But not something Mrs. Hudson would want to hear over breakfast. (Or ever.)

“Really,” Mrs. Hudson muttered to herself, rolling her eyes, most of her focus on the jam and her toast. “Quite disgusting.”

Molly ate her food, knowing better than to weigh in.

“How’s your young man, then?” Mrs. Hudson asked, obviously eager for a less gruesome topic of discussion. And probably curious why Molly was sitting in Sherlock’s pajamas at 221B rather than off somewhere with Tom. “Have you thought any more about setting a date?”

“Oh. Um.” She frowned at her tea, her left thumb moving to fidget with the fake engagement ring.

“Molly?” Mrs. Hudson asked, leaning forward a bit. Concerned. Kind.

“I think we might be calling it off, actually,” Molly said. “It’s why I’m here. He’d moved in and I just… couldn’t stay there last night.”

“I’m sorry, Molly,” Mrs. Hudson said earnestly, setting her tea aside so that she could hold on of Molly’s hands with both of her own. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s—it was my choice,” Molly said. She shrugged. She felt guilty all over again for lying to Mrs. Hudson. First it was Sherlock’s not-death, now it was a not-fiancé.

“Still, it’s always a bit disappointing when these things don’t work out, I think.”

“Yeah.”

Mrs. Hudson squeezed her hand gently, then returned to her tea. Molly started eating again. For a bit, they were quiet. Molly wasn’t sure what to say (and she was absolutely famished, so the food was much appreciated), and Mrs. Hudson seemed lost in her thoughts. Molly couldn’t help but wonder if a story about Florida in the 60s would be forthcoming.

They ate, and then Mrs. Hudson puttered about the flat a bit tidying. She’d brought Sherlock’s mail up, and she added it to a stack on the desk. Molly couldn’t tell if she was trying to linger in case tears were imminent or if she was just enjoying the company; in truth, Molly was glad for the company a bit.

“You should stay here,” Mrs. Hudson said when she’d finished wiping down the kitchen.

“What?”

“I’m the one who owns the place, love,” Mrs. Hudson said cheerfully. Molly had settled cross-legged in Sherlock’s chair, mentally gearing herself up for the conversation she _had_ to have with Sherlock sooner rather than later—the relationship talk, the what-are-we talk, the we-can’t-go-on-like-this talk. “So Sherlock’s got nothing to do with who stays in that upstairs bedroom. Or I’ve got the pullout in the spare room down in A, but the bed’s more comfortable upstairs.”

“I think Sherlock might have a few things to say about who stays upstairs even if it’s not his place,” Molly said, smiling.

Mrs. Hudson scoffed, throwing her hands in the air comically. “As if you, of anyone, can’t handle Sherlock bloody Holmes in a strop.”

“It’s still John’s room in _his_ mind,” Molly said. “Just like that’s John’s chair.”

“He’s not great with change, that’s true,” Mrs. Hudson said. “And I think he’s a bit sad to have come back and found that John’s moved on so thoroughly as he has.”

Molly nodded. She didn’t want to jump into _that_ conversation again—Mrs. Hudson was perpetually disappointed that John and Sherlock weren’t a couple. They’d never seemed particularly interested in being a couple, no matter that they’d gotten to be very close friends fairly quickly. Mrs. Hudson had her dreams, though.

“Thank you, Mrs. Hudson,” Molly said a few minutes later when it was clear Mrs. H was headed back down to her own flat.

“It will be alright, love,” Mrs. Hudson said, smiling at her. She left with her tray, hooking her foot on the door so that it closed behind her. She’d probably done that a thousand times, making sure Sherlock had something to eat, checking up on him, not expecting (or needing) a bit of help with the door.

Molly smiled after Mrs. Hudson for a moment, then turned her attention to her mobile.

Tom had sent another message, letting her know he’d collected the bag he’d had at her place and left the key she’d given him on her kitchen counter.

“Okay,” she said, tossing her mobile across to John’s chair and leaning back in Sherlock’s.

The question of the hour was what had gotten into Sherlock. He’d never been like that before. It had been amazing—she still felt pleasantly shagged out, even after cleaning up and eating breakfast.

He’d been possessive. Was that a sign? Was there some chance that he might be interested in—shifting—their relationship?

And, at the top of the list as well, was she willing to risk their current relationship, their friendship, by bringing it up?

The slam of a car door out on the street startled her out of her thoughts. It was quickly followed by the sound of the front door opening and closing, then Sherlock’s feet coming up the stairs.

“Morning,” he said as he strode into B. She smiled at him, voice caught in her throat because there was too much to say and she had no idea how to start.

She raised her eyebrows when he turned and clicked the lock behind him before he even took off his coat. When he turned back to her, toeing his shoes off as he stalked across the room, she was surprised to see his eyes were dark, hungry.

He was aroused?

_Oh_ , he was. He put his hands on the arms of his chair, leaned down over her, and kissed her. Deep, probing, passionate. And possessive, again. Utterly certain that he was allowed to kiss her, that his kiss would be welcome.

And of course it was. She craned her body upwards, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, twining her fingers into his hair, pulling him down to her, pulling herself up to him, trying to be closer.

“ _Fuck_ , Molly,” he said, groaned, shifting so that he was leaning forward at an angle that was probably a bit easier on his back. He kept his hands on the arms of the chair, supporting his weight as he pressed his forehead to hers. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?”

“Some,” she said, not able to keep the smile out of her voice. She had an easy line-of-sight to the tent in his trousers.

“Sitting in my chair,” he said, beginning to move, pressing kisses to her forehead, temples, nose, cheeks, hair. “Wearing my clothes. My dressing gown. Clothes that I _sleep_ in.”

“Really?” she asked, almost laughing. “I wouldn’t think this would be sexy. I look ridiculous.”

“Not ridiculous,” he said, standing upright again. He looked at her almost fondly, fingers twiddling with her hair, tracing the shell of her ear.

Molly reached for his belt, and he didn’t stop her. She held his eye, watching him realize what she was after. She hadn’t thought his eyes could go darker, his pupils expand any further, but they seemed to. She smiled, and it was probably a wicked smile.

She slid his trousers and pants down, gently, then had to undo a few buttons on his shirt to make an opening for herself. His cock was full and straining towards her; he hadn’t just been flirting, asking if she knew what she did to him. Apparently commandeering his things did it for him.

Molly filed that away for later, scooting forward in his chair to make things easier. She uncrossed her legs, setting one foot down on the outside of his and wrapping the other leg around his calf, locking him in close to her.

Molly leaned in, breathed deep, nuzzling a bit with her nose. He smelled amazing.

She wrapped one hand around his shaft, brought the other around to cup his bollocks. He’d moved his hands to her shoulders, bracing himself, cursing under his breath as he watched her. She smiled up at him and guided his cock to her mouth, pulling back his foreskin so she could suck just the head into her mouth then pull back and tease her tongue along his glans.

He made a humming noise that she was fairly certain was supposed to be her name, but he wasn’t coherent enough to form the rest of it.

He’d been too close to begin with for her to tease him much. She didn’t want to draw it out, anyway.

Molly gave him a few more strokes and then took him down her throat, hollowing her cheeks as she pulled back again. Sherlock made a grunting sort of noise deep in his throat, then again when she repeated the motion. He moved one of his hands from his shoulder to her hair, tugging gently, warning her he was close. Molly ignored the warning.

“Molly!”

He came in a hot rush down her throat. Every muscle in his body was tense, his fingers on her shoulder probably leaving a few new little bruises.

The idea of his marks on her should not excite her the way it did.

Molly bobbed her head a few more times as he softened in her mouth. She licked and kissed, clearing away any trace, until he was entirely flaccid again. He stayed still, head bowed as he watched her pull up his pants and trousers again, holding her shoulder for balance.

“Molly,” he said, but his voice was a croak. He cleared his throat—he flushed, too, like he was embarrassed, and it made Molly smile. “Molly.”

He leaned down so he could kiss her, sweeping his tongue into her mouth, nipping at her bottom lip. He snogged her until she couldn’t hold back a moan, and then he pulled back only far enough so that he could smile at her.

“God, you fulfill fantasies I didn’t even know I had,” he said softly, dipping down to kiss her again.

“The pajamas really work for you, huh?”

“Just because it’s you that’s wearing them.”

He stood, and Molly had to extricate her leg from around him so that he could step back. He held out his hand for hers, then pulled her up and into a tight hug.

It was unexpected. And really, very nice.

“Sherlock,” she asked, because she couldn’t help but ruin the moment, “what are we doing?”

“I really have no idea,” he said, speaking mostly into her hair because he hadn’t let her go.

Molly stepped back and let the dressing gown drop off her shoulders. She set it on the chair behind her, then pulled the t-shirt over her head and laid it on top. He looked completely baffled, but also more than a little bit aroused all over again. She untied the pajama bottoms and stepped out of them as well, adding them to the pile on the chair.

“Look at me, Sherlock,” she said. He _had_ been looking, but he’d been doing it like a man with most of his blood headed straight for his cock. At her instruction, she watched him narrow his eyes and try to be the consulting detective, eyes flicking over her naked body making deductions.

Most times, that look was accompanied by cruel words and cutting comments. She already knew everything he could deduce about her from looking at her naked, though. The only thing worth hiding were the marks he’d left on her skin, and those were what she wanted him to see.

“I didn’t mean—Did I hurt you?” He looked almost sheepish, eyes lingering on the bruises left by his fingers more than the lovebites.

“No, Sherlock.”

He met her eyes, looking desperately clueless. He’d looked at the marks he’d put on her body and thought she was showing him to tell him he’d gone too far, but she’d been trying to tell him that she’d liked it.

She was a strong, independent woman, and she chose exactly who got to touch her, who got to kiss and bite and leave marks on her. And she could bloody well get off on his possessive streak if she wanted to.

“It looks like I attacked you,” he said, almost timid. “If I saw—all this—on a victim, I’d—”

She took his hand, laying it flat on her sternum so that he could feel her heartbeat. Probably a bit elevated because she was aroused, but strong and steady.

“You didn’t attack me,” she told him. Molly traced the marks he’d left behind with the hand that wasn’t holding his in place on her chest. “I liked it.”

Sherlock didn’t look quite so timid, but he did look sheepish. He took his hand back and stepped around her to pick up his dressing gown, holding it out so that she could shrug into it. He tied it for her, hands remaining at her waist and pulling her close again.

“Sherlock,” she started, putting her hands on his chest and looking up into his eyes.

“Molly—” he said, cutting her off, but then didn't say anything further. He looked down at her, brow wrinkled, puzzled.

He pulled her against him and kissed her. She couldn’t tell if he didn’t know what to say and was trying to distract her with kisses instead, or if he didn’t know what to say and was trying to say it with kisses. Either way, his hands trailed down to cup her bum, lifting her up a bit, pressing her against his body, and her thought process completely derailed as she gave herself over to him.

Molly put her hand on his cheek, tilting her head to get a better angle as their tongues dueled. He smiled against her mouth, moving his hands down further so they were more on her thighs than her bum, hitching her up, urging her to wrap her legs around his hips. She did, pressing wet, biting kisses along his jaw, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He shifted her so that her center was pressed over his erection.

“Take me to bed, Sherlock,” she instructed, nipping at his earlobe.

He didn’t need to be told twice. He turned his head, capturing her lips again, and started moving. He only made it to the kitchen, though, before groaning low, nipping at her jaw in retaliation for the way she’d rolled her hips against his groin.

“ _Fuck_ , Molly,” he said, setting her down on the table in the kitchen, laying her back across it and arching over her, dominating her mouth while they both tore at his clothes. He was wearing too many clothes.

“Off,” she muttered, sliding buttons out of their holes as he shrugged off his coat. “Take it off.”

He dropped his shirt and coat, then hissed when she sat up to plant a sucking kiss to his nearest nipple. He swore, bracing his hands next to her on the table. She began undoing his belt.

“Molly,” he said. Like a prayer. She drew back to look at him, smiling, leaving off working on his trousers to reach for his head, pulling him down to her for another kiss.

She hummed happily into his mouth, then leaned back on her elbows when she heard the thump of his belt against the kitchen floor. He was already between her legs, but she spread them wider. He leered down at her, pulling the tie loose from the dressing gown so that he could see her, see all the marks he’d left on her.

He rubbed his hands along her thighs, thumbs teasing along the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs, smirked when he found the spot that always made her arch her back, practically purring like a cat under his touch.

He bent almost in half to be able to kiss her mouth again, his cock trapped between their bodies throbbing in time with his heartbeat.

“Please,” she said, begged, after the frantic edge had faded from the kiss. “Please, please, Sherlock, I need—”

Sherlock stood up, towering over her again, and put his hands under her knees to pull her down the table. She wrapped her legs around his waist, feeling like he’d pulled her so far to the edge she was about to fall off the table. When he let go of her, she moved her arms to brace herself, gripping the sides of the table and watching him line himself up.

He looked to her, seeking permission. She nodded her consent, and that was all he needed.

She was making the most cliché noises. It would’ve been embarrassing if she’d thought about it, but it was the last thing on her mind. Keening, mewling, gasping. She sounded like the most over the top porn, only made worse by the masculine grunts coming from Sherlock.

Molly didn’t last long. She came with a wail, head throw back, torso arching off the table again. Sherlock followed her over, letting out one final grunt that was almost more of a moan.

Molly started laughing as she caught her breath, and Sherlock was quick to join her. Giggles quickly turned to roars of helpless laugher as they took stock of themselves.

She was still wearing his dressing gown. His pants and trousers were a tangled mess around his ankles, his shirt and coat in a puddle behind him. They were both glistening with sweat, hair clinging to their faces. Their skin was mottled with fresh and fading bruises and lovebites. They were flushed, and not prettily.

“God, I’m _starving_ ,” Molly said, sitting up. She groaned when her muscles protested the movement, letting herself fall forward against Sherlock’s chest. “And I’m sore. I’m so sore.”

“I need another shower,” he said, putting his arms loosely around her, leaning his head forward so that it rested on top of hers.

“If we order from that Greek place down the block, it should be here by the time we finish in the shower.”

“You are brilliant,” he said decisively. She laughed again.

His semen had begun to dribble out of her, finally forcing her to pat his shoulder and get them moving. It was sexy as an idea—her thighs smeared with his seed—but in actuality it was a sticky mess.

“Shower,” she said, sliding off the table.

“And food,” he said as she left the kitchen, stepping out of the tangle of his trousers to search for his mobile among his things.

Molly didn’t realize until she was back at her own flat hours later, sitting watching some crap telly with Toby on her lap, that they’d never actually managed to have that conversation.

* * *

Meena’s hen night was the following weekend. It was a sort of double hen-night, since Meena and her bride-to-be had decided to go out together. All sorts of people in novelty t-shirts, the brides both in sashes and tiaras, out for a pub crawl.

The group was a bit sorry for her and her “engagement” that had fallen apart. Molly repeated the bit about how it was her choice to call things off. All that really came of it was people buying her drinks. A lot of drinks.

Meena and Tina (a rhyme that only seemed to get funnier as the night went on) were doing shots. Tina’s trio of bridesmaids were doing karaoke (and they weren’t horrible at it, though Molly wasn’t the best judge at the moment since she was fairly pissed). Molly was sitting with Meena’s other two bridesmaids, both from Bart’s as well though she couldn’t for the life of her remember which departments, wondering how much longer it was all going to go on for.

She’d been having a great time. She _was_ having a great time. Meena was her friend. Tina was great. The other bridesmaids were lovely. The little group of friends and family of the brides that had come along as well was a surprisingly fun group of people for such a mashed-together bunch.

But it was almost midnight. And she was long past her twenties. And she’d crossed the line from jovially sloshed into the this-hangover-will-be-hell-anyway stage of drunkenness.

“Don’t be sad!” Meena cried, doing a weird sort of flail-walk, too drunk to move well in her heels. She’d brought shots with her, two in each hand somehow. “Here, here. Help me drink these.”

“I might die if I drink those,” Molly said, but she took one of the shots and looked it over. It was reddish like there was cranberry juice in it and the smell of it burned the inside of her nose, but she had no idea what it was. All the shots seemed to have weird names.

“You won’t die,” Meena said, setting the rest of the shots down between them. “This will help.”

“Help what?”

“Drink.”

Molly had the shot. It mostly tasted the way it had smelled. Burn-y.

“God. Is the plan to kill all the brain cells that remember Tom?” Molly asked. Meena beamed at her. “We’re supposed to be out here _celebrating_ you getting married. Not getting me over bloody Tom.”

She was quite drunk, so none of it came out particularly clearly. “Member” and “s’posed’ta” and “calibrating” instead of “celebrating.” Luckily, Meena was just as drunk so it all made perfect sense to her. Or seemed to.

“Can multitask,” Meena said, nodding sagely. “We’re verrrry clever.”

Molly frowned. Then she burped and it tasted like burning all over again.

She tried to follow the conversation Tina was having with a few people about Game of Thrones, but she’d only ever read the books so she wasn’t quite sure what they were on about. Meena dragged her to the mic in the corner for karaoke, and it went horribly. (That probably wasn’t because they were drunk; neither of them had ever been any good at karaoke in any state.)

Not quite an hour later, when the party had broken up for the night, Molly found herself in the back of a cab at Baker Street. The driver didn’t seem to believe that she wasn’t a hat detective groupie—which was absurdly hilarious.

“Got a bloody _key_ , don’t I?” Molly asked, fishing through her handbag for just that. She found her money first, luckily, and paid the man. “They don’t give keys to groupies.”

“Miss, I’m not sure—”

Molly shushed him. She didn’t do it quietly. “You’re going to wake Mrs. Hudson!” she told him.

“I—”

“Molly?” Sherlock asked. He’d stuck his head out the front window of his flat so he could look down at her standing on his steps. She beamed up at him, then beamed at the cabbie.

“ _See_ ,” she said. “He knows my name.”

“Wasn’t sure I should leave her here, Mr. Holmes,” the cabbie said, ignoring Molly. She frowned at him and would’ve like to tell him off for speaking as if she wasn’t there but, for the moment, she wasn’t sure she could open her mouth without puking. She’d done very well with the not-puking so far this evening.

“You were out with Meena,” Sherlock said. She hadn’t noticed him leave the window, but he was standing behind her in the open door to 221.

“Meena an’ Tina,” Molly said, giggling at the rhyme. He exchanged a look with the cabbie, pretty clearly trying not to laugh at her. She went to poke his chest and tell him off, but he just took her hand and used it to keep her upright. She frowned at him, blinking up at his face. “I am too old for this sort of drinking, William Sherlock.”

Sherlock was laughing at her. She could tell.

Something was said to the cabbie, and the cab drove off. Sherlock helped Molly into 221, taking entirely too much pleasure in her inebriation. He let her try the stairs on her own, but she only made it a few stairs up before she had to sit down.

Sherlock was giggling. _Giggling_.

* * *

Molly woke up in his bed the next morning. He’d left her a bottle of water on the bedside table.

She felt absolutely awful. Her head pounded, her eyes ached, her throat ached, the room spun when she tried to sit up.

“Am I dead?” she asked, because she just knew he was standing in the doorway watching her. Probably laughing again.

“Molly, you are the most hilarious drunk I have ever encountered,” he said, voice deep and smooth and entirely too amused.

“I feel awful.”

“Drink your water,” he said, still chuckling as he turned and left the room. He was no help at all.

Molly drank the water and checked her mobile. From the texts, it seemed Sherlock had taken video of her trying to make it up the stairs last night. Mary and Greg were both incredibly amused.

Groaning, Molly buried herself under the covers again.

When she woke again, there was a fresh bottle of water and no sign of Sherlock. She felt marginally more human. Almost.

She grabbed his dressing gown off the back of the door, scrunching the sleeves up so she could use her hands. She was a mess of yesterday’s hairspray, the BRIDESMAID shirt untucked from her skirt, trying to pull her tights off and walk at the same time when she made it out to the lounge and found not Sherlock but Mary.

Mary took one look at her and laughed.

“Oh, you poor thing,” Mary said. Giggling. Like Sherlock had the night before.

“This is the last time I come to you lot for help,” Molly grumbled, turning to go to the kitchen to find some tea or something. “All you do is laugh at me.”

“Oh, sit down. You’re fine,” Mary said, pushing her into one of the chairs and walking around her to put the kettle on.

“I don’t feel fine,” Molly said, putting her head down on the table.

“I would’ve checked on you sooner, but I had no idea you were here,” Mary said. There was a curious, leading edge to her tone that made Molly sit up and glare at her.

“You knew I came here. He sent you video. I know he did because you texted me about it.”

Mary chuckled, handing over a sleeve of biscuits Sherlock had probably pilfered from Mrs. H.

“I’ve just sent the boys off, so you don’t have to worry about any more video recording on that front,” Mary said. She set down mugs of tea on the table and joined her, still looking overly amused by it all.

* * *

The next few weeks were strange. Molly saw Sherlock constantly, but never managed to have the conversation that needed to happen with him. She couldn’t tell if he was being deliberately obtuse and avoiding it, or if he was so genuinely clueless as to how normal relationships worked that he didn’t realize what was going on.

He showed up two or three times a week to have lunch with her in her office. She was working on a paper, and he seemed to enjoy asking her hundreds of odd questions about her research. They’d eat, talk about her work, talk about his latest cases, and inevitably have a bit of a snog before going off to the lab so she could get back to work and he could do whatever it was he was up to with those slides.

He turned up at her place on her days off and most evenings. They cooked together. (It was _weird_. But delicious.) They watched crap telly. They fucked like rabbits.

She had a new neighbor who _hated_ them. The woman’s name was Jill, and she was the sort of woman who had probably never had an issue on the pull in her life. Beautiful blue eyes, long curly red hair. She seemed to take it as a personal slight that Sherlock kept letting himself into Molly’s flat once he knew that Jill was single. Molly was fairly sure the woman had knocked over the planter of herbs Molly had been tending on the back patio for years, so she decided she didn’t care a jot how loudly Jill banged her fist against the shared wall in the living room; she wasn’t going to be quiet about anything, and she certainly wasn’t going to drag Sherlock off to the bedroom every time he got handsy on the couch.

He took her dancing. It seemed to be for a case, but she never quite got the details. At the end of the night, he’d had his hand high on her thigh for the whole ride back to hers. Not trying to get under her skirt, not teasing the hemline, nothing. Just his warm palm on her leg. Possessive. Comforting.

And throughout the mad dash of shagging and research and writing and more shagging, Sherlock was incredibly involved in planning John and Mary’s wedding. Actually, properly involved. He watched YouTube about folding napkins, and she was fairly sure he was interviewing each member of the wedding party.

_Maybe he just missed it all_ , she thought. He was in the ensuite shower, she was making them a bit of breakfast before she had to go to work. He’d probably stick around and do their dishes before he left to meet clients at Baker Street. _Missed his life. Being alive, being Sherlock Holmes. No greater game than the case of the day, evenings playing board games with John or Mycroft. And, apparently, shagging me in his downtime._

* * *

Sherlock was at hers again, digging around in the front closet for who-knew-what. Molly had been ignoring him, putting finishing touches on her paper for submission.

When he surfaced, though, he had a DVD in a clear case in his hand and a curious look on his face. And a riding crop in his other hand. (She was fairly sure it was his riding crop, left behind at the lab ages ago; she’d brought it home so the students would stop ogling it in her office.)

“Molly? Is this _porn_?” he asked, looking absurdly delighted.

“As close to the opposite of that as exists,” Molly said, rolling her eyes and going back to her paper.

“It looks like porn.”

“You’ve got a filthy mind, Sherlock.”

“Do not.”

She looked up, because that was oddly childish coming from him. His comebacks were usually… better.

“Why are you here again?”

“Bored,” he said, flopping onto her couch. He’d already put the thing in the player. “John’s tasting cake today.”

“Is that… a euphemism?”

“No,” he said, drawing it out and looking at her like she was the one that was crazy. “Apparently it’s a thing.”

“Right.”

He’d found the one home movie she hadn’t gotten rid of. Her dad had been all about the family camcorder for most of her childhood, and he’d spent the last few months of his life lovingly transferring all the old tapes to DVD. Ellie had kept a copy of every single one.

The windy-scratchy audio filled the flat, and Molly knew she wasn’t going to be getting any more work done on her paper.

The home movie was from the summer before the divorce, when her parents were trying to make it work while she and her siblings pretended they didn’t know which way the wind was blowing. It started with a weekend trip to the seaside, the five of them in bathing suits playing on the beach, playing board games in the rented cottage, her parents flirting with each other for the camera. Then there would be a few of Molly’s piano things, Charlie’s big project for the fall science fair at his school, a horrible banquet to honor some paper her dad had contributed to (their mother had put Molly and Ellie in matching dresses; it had been awful). About two full minutes of the fire on Bonfire Night. Christmas morning, with cocoa and presents and her parents appearing to actually enjoy being in the same room for once. Christmas evening, Molly playing the piano accompaniment to her dad singing Christmas carols (he’d had a wonderful voice).

Before the tradition of going out for drinks with friends (with Sherlock these days, since Jules had taken a job in Norway and the tradition of “impromptu” girls' night out had fallen to the wayside) to keep herself busy on the anniversary of her dad’s death, she would sit at home and watch that home movie. She hadn’t watched it in a few years, and she was surprised to find it was pleasantly nostalgic rather than sad.

Sherlock sat still through the whole thing, watching it like he was enraptured or something. It was a little creepy.

“You never talk about this,” Sherlock said when it was almost finished. Her dad was singing Good King Wenceslas, Molly dutifully playing along. Her mum had disappeared off to get more nibbles. Charlie and Ellie had mugs of cocoa, marshmallows floating on top, while they sat at the table looking at a book together.

“Hm? About what?”

“Your family,” he said. His forehead was all wrinkled like he was trying to process something that made no sense. “I’ve never even met your sister. And I didn’t know you played piano, let alone like _that_.”

“Well…” Molly sighed, shrugged. “This is really just the highlight reel. Mum and Dad fought all the time. Divorced before the next Christmas, actually. Then they had a custody battle over us all that dragged out longer than the divorce proceedings. And not even a year after all that was sorted out, Mum and Charlie died in that car crash. And then Dad died right after I started uni. And that leaves Ellie and me, and, unlike you and Mycroft, we really _don’t_ get along rather than just pretend not to get along.”

They’d ended up at opposite ends of the couch. He had his feet tucked under her thigh keeping warm, while hers were in his lap. He’d been absentmindedly rubbing her feet and ankles. For some reason, it wasn’t so hard to talk about things when he was being… soothing.

“You were in the car too,” he said. “When it crashed.”

“Both of us were,” Molly said. Of course he hadn’t actually been rubbing her ankle for the sake of rubbing her ankle—he’d been tracing the faint scar left behind when it had been sliced open on some piece of metal when she was flung from the car. “Relatively unscathed, though.”

“What does Ellie do now?”

“Archeology. She works for a few museums, consulting or curating or whatever. Spends a few months a year traveling to dig sites.” Molly looked away from him, focusing on the screen for a moment. Her dad had convinced her siblings to help him sing the 12 Days of Christmas. Charlie knew most of the words, but the only one Ellie knew was ‘five gold rings’ and she jumped in every verse as her own solo. “She got married in uni. He died just before our thirtieth birthday. She has a couple dogs, a nice townhouse in the city.”

“And the piano?” Sherlock asked once the DVD had ended. It had a sort of generic PRESS PLAY menu screen, no sound or music in the background. “You don’t even own a piano. You have the room for it, though.”

“You can’t deduce it?” Molly asked, poking him with a toe, trying to smile. He caught her foot and pinned her with a look.

“I generally try _not_ to deduce you, Molly,” he said quietly, seriously. “I always end up saying something… horrible. I always miss something.”

Molly blinked and looked away, suddenly not thinking about the Christmas on the DVD but a rather more recent Christmas. That party where he’d done a very good job humiliating her.

“Yes. Well.”

She tried to take her feet back, but he held on, looking at her with those beautiful eyes of his, earnestly waiting for an answer to his question. She sighed.

“This is the first place I’ve lived since I was on my own that would’ve had room for a piano.” He let her take her feet back as she shifted forward, sitting cross-legged facing him on the couch. He’d pulled his own feet back to his side of the couch when she moved. “So I never owned one of my own.”

“But you haven’t tried to find one? Haven’t missed playing?”

“I miss it, sure. But it’s not—” She frowned. It was hard to explain, particularly since she knew he took so much comfort in his own music. “I was sort of a child prodigy, as you saw. And the thing about that is that, when you’ve grown up, you’re just another adult who can play the piano fairly well. My mum was obsessed—well, not obsessed, but she was the one who was always pushing for the piano, the recitals, the performances, all of it. Those Christmas nights with the carols were the only times it was really fun. And then Dad died, and it was sad rather than fun.”

* * *

Sherlock didn’t come around for nearly a month after that afternoon. He’d spent over an hour looking like he was going to say something, not saying anything, and then left when Greg called with a case for him.

He popped up at Bart’s like always, but he didn’t turn up at her place or invite her over to his. Not even for actual-friends-no-benefits sorts of things.

And then it was May, and John and Mary were getting married. The ceremony was lovely. The bridesmaids were in purple, and the venue was perfect, and John and Sherlock looked so handsome in their getups, and Mary’s dress was perfect. The food was better than good. Greg got a little tipsy on the free booze, but not so badly that he made a scene. (He wore Mrs. Hudson's hat for most of the dancing, though.)

Sherlock’s speech almost made her hate him all over again. It was absolutely perfect. He made people _cry_ , and in a good way rather than the usual way.

The thing about it was that he made it absolutely clear that he had made a choice not to love her. John Watson was worth caring for, but not Molly Hooper. She was useful to his work, convenient to his sexual needs, a living person to tag along with him when John was busy or cross with him. But that was it. That was all he’d allow her to be.

The worst part about it was that she didn’t mind. Well, no, she _minded_ , but it didn’t matter.


	16. the happiest season of all

The time slipped by. John and Mary were off on their honeymoon. Sherlock had continued to keep his distance. She hadn’t heard from Mycroft, and whatever he was up to was keeping Annie busy as well. Greg was due in court every day for the foreseeable future, tying up all the details of an enormous case. Half her coworkers at the lab were down with the flu, so the usual crowd wasn’t available to go out for drinks.

Molly felt a bit adrift.

She was in the last hour of a double—and she’d worked overnight, filling in for somebody out with that flu—when John called. He had found Sherlock in some sort of drug den, and he wanted her to run a drug test.

“Well?” John said once they’d all hung around to watch her run the samples. “Is he clean?”

“Clean,” Molly repeated, trying to keep her cool. He’d fallen into old habits. Just like he’d always done. Just like the last time he’d been living alone, before Mycroft and Mrs. Hudson had given him the ultimatum, forced him to find a flatmate. She walked over to Sherlock and slapped him. When he didn’t hardly flinch, she slapped him again. Then again. “How dare you throw away the beautiful gifts you were born with. And how dare you throw away the love of your friends. Say you’re sorry.”

“I’m sorry your engagement’s over, though I’m fairly grateful for the lack of a ring.”

He knew it had been fake, the hateful bastard.

“Stop it. Just stop it.”

“If you were anywhere near this kind of thing again, you could’ve called. You could’ve talked to me,” John said, walking over to them.

“Oh, please,” Sherlock said. “Do relax. This is all for a case.”

“What kind of case would need you doing this?” John asked.

“I might as well ask why you’ve started cycling to work?” Sherlock shot back.

“No, we’re not playing this game.”

“Quite recently, I’d say, you’re very determined about it.”

“Not interested.”

“I am,” the man they’d brought in with them said. Molly vaguely recognized him as one of Sherlock’s homeless network, but she’d never learned his name. “Ow!”

“Oh, sorry, you moved,” Mary said. “But it is just a sprain.”

“Yeah, somebody hit me,” he said.

“Huh?” Mary and Sherlock both looked over at John. John didn’t look back at them.

“Yeah, just some guy.”

“Yeah, it was probably just an addict in need of a fix,” John said.

“Yes, I think in a way it was,” Sherlock said.

Molly wanted to box them all around the ears. They all—even Mary sometimes—enjoyed living dangerously. Enjoyed playing on the edge of the cliff.

“Is it his shirt?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Well, it’s the creases, innit?” he asked. “The two creases down the front? It’s been recently folded, but it’s not new. You must’ve dressed in a hurry this morning. So all your shirts must be kept like this. But why? Maybe ‘cause you cycle to work every morning, shower when you get there, and then you dress in the clothes you brought with you. You keep your shirts folded, ready to pack.”

“Not bad,” Sherlock said. He looked halfway impressed.

“And I further deduce,” the man went on, “you’ve only started recently because you’ve got a bit of chafing.”

“No, he’s always walked like that,” Sherlock said. Molly wanted to smile, but she was still too angry at him. “Remind me, what’s your name again?”

“They call me The Wig,” he said.

“No, they don’t.”

“Well, they call me Wiggy.”

“Nope.”

“Bill,” he finally said, looking down. Mary, next to him, was trying not to smile. “Bill Wiggins.”

“Nice observational skills, Billy.”

And then he got a text and seemed very excited that his drug habit would be in the papers. And that meant she’d be getting a call from Mycroft later, no doubt.

* * *

Not quite an hour after she got off the phone with Mycroft (Mycroft as close to irate as she’d ever heard him), John called.

“Weird question,” he said, “has Sherlock ever had a girlfriend?”

“What?”

It was, indeed, a weird question.

“You’ve known him longer than I have. Has he ever had anyone? A relationship?”

“He didn’t even have _friends_ until you turned up, John,” she said honestly enough.

“It’s just—I think he’s got a girlfriend. A proper girlfriend.”

“A what?”

“Right?” John seemed to be glad that she was as surprised as he was. “Remember Janine from the wedding? One of Mary’s bridesmaids.”

“Yeah.” Molly wanted to curl up with her cat and shut off the world. Janine was tall and beautiful; every single time she’d seen her over the course of wedding planning and the hen night, she’d had perfect hair.

An odd spike of jealousy settled in the pit of her stomach. She was good enough for Sherlock to take to bed in secret for _years_ , but in public he was as rude and cutting as he was to anybody else. And then Janine with perfect hair got presented to John as his girlfriend.

“When I went to see him back to Baker Street, she was there. She’d spent the night. She was wearing one of his _shirts_.” John couldn’t seem to decide if he was flabbergasted or entertained. “She called him _Sherl_. They’re going to have me and Mary over for dinner.”

“Oh, no,” Molly said.

“What was that?”

“Sorry, it’s just I’m still at work and they’ve just brought somebody in,” she lied. “I’ve got to go, John. Call you later?”

“Sure, yeah. Talk later.”

“Bye.”

“Bye, Molly.”

He rung off, and Molly slumped back in her office chair.

And then an orderly really did wheel another corpse into the morgue, popping his head in to hand her the paperwork. And she had to get back to work.

* * *

Molly stopped for fish and chips on the way home. With mushy peas. Then she sat in her flat and picked at it, thinking about Sherlock and the drugs and Janine.

Her phone rang just after she’d given up on dinner and tossed it all in the bin.

“Hello?”

“Hi. I’m calling for Molly Hooper?”

“This is she.”

“Hi, Ms. Hooper. I’m calling because you’re listed as the emergency contact for Mr. Holmes. He wanted you alerted if he was ever admitted to hospital?”

She’d thought it was Mycroft again, but it was Sherlock. He’d been shot.

He wasn’t at Bart’s, but neither was she. She called John on her way, only to find out that he was already there; he’d been with him when it happened.

“Remember Janine?” he asked. Her cab had just let her out at the hospital. “Complete trick. He was using her to get access to the office.”

“That sounds more like him,” Molly said because she couldn’t help it. It hadn’t even been twelve hours since he’d been in her lab and she’d been running those tests on him.

“Hey, by the way, how did you know?” he asked once she’d arrived. She’d checked in with the desk, been told he was still in surgery, then found John so he could fill her in on a few more details.

“What?”

“How did you know he was here? _You_ called _me_.”

“Oh. I’m his emergency contact,” she said, suddenly self-conscious about it.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I think he just hasn’t changed it from when you thought he was dead.”

John scowled at her. They’d had a few conversations about it, but they’d never properly hashed things out. He wanted to be very angry about it, but he was trying to put it all behind him.

“I should go call Mary again,” he said, then walked away before she could do more than nod.

* * *

Mary arrived just after they’d declared him out of the woods. There were hugs all around. Tense hugs, them all knowing that surviving surgery was just the first step.

Molly excused herself to call Mycroft while the Watsons went in to visit him.

The little canteen in the lobby of the hospital served horrible coffee and inedible muffins, but Molly bought one of each anyway. She picked the muffin apart while she talked to Mycroft, telling him everything she knew, assuring him that the surgeons thought Sherlock was going to pull through.

“Have you seen the headlines?” Mycroft asked when she’d been about to ring off.

“No. I haven’t seen the papers,” Molly said. She was exhausted; she had no time for Mycroft’s idea of banter, or whatever this was. She just wanted to go up and see Sherlock, assure herself with her own eyes that he was not actively dying, and then get home to squeeze in a few hours’ sleep before work.

“Ah, well I won’t spoil anything for you,” he said. She could hear the smarmy smirk in his voice

“Goodbye, Mycroft. Please drop in and visit your brother before he’s released.”

Mycroft sighed—the same sigh as when his parents brought up the idea of him escorting them to the theatre—and rung off.

She did look for a paper after binning the coffee and crumbled muffin. When she found one, she wasn’t sure what Mycroft had expected her to get out of it. Shared amusement that Sherlock could be such a callous wretch?

SHAG-A-LOT HOLMES, one said. 7 TIMES A NIGHT AT BAKER STREET.

HE MAKES ME WEAR THE HAT.

It did make her a bit proud of Janine, actually. She wasn’t standing for Sherlock’s shit. She’d probably make bank off the stories, possibly for years to come.

* * *

John had moved back into Baker Street. Mary was somewhere around six months pregnant with his child, but he couldn’t even talk about her without getting that stormy look on his face and leaving the room.

“How are things at work?” Molly asked. It was Saturday, and Mary had come over for tea.

“Tense. He’s very polite.”

“I talked to Sherlock the other day,” Molly said. “He’s doing his best to talk John around.”

Mary smiled, looking down into her tea.

“Thank you for not asking,” she said after a moment.

“What?”

“For not asking what it’s all about. Him moving back in with Sherlock.”

“It’s none of my business,” Molly said, shrugging. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“It’s not about not wanting to,” Mary said thoughtfully. “It’s just… I don’t want you tangled up in it, too.”

“You sound like Sherlock,” Molly said, but she couldn’t help but smile. He’d given her a conflicted look when he’d brought a cooler full of human remains back to the lab for proper disposal, trying to bring things at the flat back up to John’s standards of cleanliness; he was being a loyal friend but it made him feel disloyal as well.

“Can I ask you an off-the-wall question?” Mary asked, sitting up a little straighter, obviously deciding it was time to change the subject.

“Shoot.”

“How long have you been sleeping with Sherlock?”

Molly almost spat out her tea. “ _What_?”

“You and Sherlock.”

“What makes you ask?” Molly asked. “You know Sherlock doesn’t go in for relationships. Not proper ones, anyway.”

“Casual touches.”

“What?”

“He doesn’t really go in for casual contact. At all.” Mary smirked. “Except for you.”

“We’re friends.”

“So are he and John.”

“Well, it’s different.”

“No. You can’t throw me off.” Mary sat forward, the smirk morphing into a full smile.

“Mary…”

“You haven’t denied it.”

“Well, what’s the point. You wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

“It was hard to believe at first that you managed to keep the big secret, Sherlock’s fake death and all that,” Mary said, still smiling though her eyes had turned thoughtful. “But now…”

“Don’t be an arse.”

“Really, though,” Mary said, her smile more conciliatory, reaching across the table to squeeze Molly’s hand briefly. “How long? Was it a grand catharsis of pulling off the not-suicide?”

“Hardly,” Molly said. She sighed and narrowed her eyes at her friend, but decided to answer. “We’re not a couple.”

“That I had figured out.”

“2009-ish.”

“You’re _kidding_!”

“No. It’s been off and on since before he met John.”

“And John thinks he’s a virgin,” Mary said, smirking to herself.

“So does Mycroft,” Molly added. He _had_ , at least. Until he’d put it all together about the miscarriage.

“2009,” Mary murmured, shaking her head.

“We’ve been more ‘off’ than ‘on’ since he got back. There was Tom, and now he’s been messing around with the drugs again.”

“That was what tipped me off,” Mary said, sipping her tea. “The way he reacted when you slapped him.”

“He _didn’t_ react. Not really.”

“Exactly,” Mary said. “It was like he thought you deserved to hit him for it.”

“It’s hardly the first time he’s fallen off the wagon,” Molly said, fidgeting with her own tea rather than drinking it. “I shouldn’t have hit him.”

“Maybe it was the wakeup call he needed. He’s been clean since then, as far as I know.”

“He has, yes,” Molly said. “That could be John moving back, though. It was what did it before.”

The conversation meandered. Molly talked a bit about what Sherlock was like before he met John, a bit about how they’d made a game of keeping secrets from Mycroft. After a hesitant moment, Mary shared a bit about what was going on between her and John—that she’d kept a secret, a dangerous secret, about her past, and John had found out in the worst way.

“So the Magnussen thing isn’t just about that other client,” Molly said quietly, nodding to herself in confirmation when Mary’s eyes snapped up to meet hers. “He knows your secret.”

“He knows just about all of them, yes.”

“Oh, Mary,” Molly said, and this time she was the one to reach across the table to squeeze her friend’s hand.

“They’re working on it, the pair of them.”

“Sherlock will think of something.” Molly smiled. “He usually does.”

* * *

She spent most of the summer waiting for the other shoe to drop. Or at least that’s what it felt like she was doing.

In reality, time ticked on by as it always did. She went to work, she went home, she went grocery shopping. She spent more time with Mary than she ever had before. Her horrible neighbor, Jill, moved out and was replaced with a quiet older couple. Meena and Tina moved to Toronto. Sherlock brought her the usual paperwork, but while he returned to his habit of sleeping in her bed most nights they didn’t pick up with the sex again. Cousin Kath invited everybody on the Holmes cousins email to spend a weekend at their chalet, and Molly caught herself actually considering it.

In a lot of ways, it felt more like things had before Sherlock’s “death” than it ever had before John and Mary’s wedding.

There was something going on, though. Something to do with John and Mary, and with Magnussen. It was easy to ignore, but she could practically _feel_ Sherlock’s brain whirring in overdrive at night as he turned the puzzle over. He wouldn’t talk to her about it any more than Mary would.

* * *

The Jack the Ripper fanatic had been the furthest thing from Molly’s mind when Annie turned up with a file. She also brought an enormous cup of coffee, which was much appreciated because Molly had been called in to look at the bodies of two MI-6 operatives who’d died under suspicious circumstances (both apparent heart failures despite peak physical condition—one had dropped dead while vacationing in the States, the other had been on assignment in Geneva) and she’d gotten maybe two hours of sleep in the last forty.

“Sebastian Moran?” Molly asked, flipping through the file. An American expat, military training, lots of mercenary work before he completely dropped off the radar only to pop up doing minor thug/enforcer-type work not quite a month before Moriarty had been arrested wearing the crown jewels.

“Moriarty’s right hand, at least until he started with that grand scheme of his targeting Mr. Bell,” Anthea said. “Don’t know if Moriarty found a different partner for that one or if they had a falling out, but it seems they parted ways near the end.”

“So it was some sort of, what, homage to his memory? He thought Sherlock killed his ally, his friend, so he started killing the people who helped Sherlock?” Molly closed the file and took a gulp of coffee.

“Best guess, yes,” Anthea said with a shrug. “He killed himself before anybody could get more than the general idea of it all out of him.”

Molly nodded and drank her coffee. It said in the file that he’d died in custody—a convoluted hanging, wrenching his bed frame from where it was bolted to the floor, standing it up on end, tying one of the sheets to the top and dropping to the floor so gravity choked the life out of him. It would’ve been less work to cut his wrists with the bolts.

“And who are these two?” Molly asked, because there was a sheet of notebook paper paperclipped to the front of Moran’s file—two names, a case number, and the amount of time they’d each been sentenced to.

“Those are the two Moran sent to kidnap you,” Anthea said. “The ones who found your sister instead and turned it into a mugging.”

“Oh.”

“Their sentencing was this morning.”

“And why is it Mycroft made especially sure you delivered this news on the day they’re sentenced?” Molly asked after a moment. She knew Annie well enough, at this point, to notice when she had an opinion on what her boss was up to.

“Because Dr. Penham was in court for it. Closure, I think,” Anthea said after a moment. “She didn’t bring anybody with her.”

“If he thinks she’ll want me to call her—”

“CCTV has her headed to Baker Street,” Anthea said.

“Oh.” Molly frowned. “Thank you for bringing me coffee.”

Anthea smiled and walked out with her. All Molly wanted to do was go home and crawl into bed, but if Sherlock had stuck his nose in with Ellie it’d be better if she turned up at Baker Street to remind him not to be a dick.

Molly stopped for Thai, ordering double their usual just in case John was around (and extra on the chance that Ellie stayed for lunch). She had half a mind to stop for another cup of coffee, too, but that was pushing it with the caffeine and it was more about procrastination anyway.

“Hey, Molly,” John said, turning to smile at her when she got out of the cab. He’d been just ahead of her, key in the lock, his own bag of takeout from the same restaurant in hand.

“Hi,” she said. “I brought lunch.”

“You’re checking in on him too, huh?” John stepped aside to hold the door open for her. He looked tired, drained. Not for the first time, she wished one of them would crack and tell her what was going on so that she might actually be able to help.

“Maybe a bit,” she said. It hadn’t actually crossed her mind, though. Whatever secret thing was going on was too good a puzzle for him to muddy his thought process with drugs, at least according to the way he always told it.

They went up the stairs, going in through the hall door because the usual door in through the lounge was closed—that meant he was with a client.

“Have you seen Greg much lately?” Molly asked quietly, setting the bag of food down out of the way so that she could begin clearing the microscope and things off the table. “There’s enough food we could ring him, see if he’s nearby.”

“That’s a good idea.” John wrinkled his nose as he moved a petri dish full of glossy pinkish fuzz. (No telling if it was a deliberate growth or if Sherlock had just left something sitting out too long.) “Haven’t seen him in ages, come to think of it. I could ask Mrs. H, too.”

“You call him, I’ll finish with all this.”

John stepped out, and Molly glanced at the closed sliding doors between the kitchen and lounge. Sherlock would know she was there… She finished getting the table ready for lunch, then stepped closer to the doors to see if she could hear what was going on on the other side.

“It’s as simple as that,” Sherlock was saying, a definite bit of irritation in his tone. “I cannot undo what happened to you. I’ve done what I can to try to give you some peace of mind.”

Molly could only just make out Ellie’s voice responding, sharp and a bit snide, but couldn’t make out the words. Whatever Sherlock said back was softer, too.

Molly moved away from the sliding doors, biting her lip, wondering if she should step in. It sounded like it was past the point of telling Sherlock not to be a dick. And, really, it would probably only make things worse to have her and Ellie in the same room; they hadn’t so much as exchanged texts since Ellie had returned to Glasgow.

John reentered the kitchen with Mrs. Hudson just as Sherlock slid the doors to the lounge open.

“Lunch. Good,” Sherlock said. He waved a vague hand at everybody. “John, Mrs. Hudson, this is Molly’s sister Elaine Penham. Dr. Penham, John and Mrs. Hudson.”

“Um. Hi,” Ellie said. She’d cut her hair—it just barely dusted her shoulders; it looked nice. Floral dress. Death grip on the crossbody strap of her handbag. She looked well, though. Especially considering the state she’d been in when Molly had last seen her.

“Hi,” Molly said.

“Oh. Hi,” John said, looking between Ellie and Molly like people always did. “John Watson.”

“Yeah. I’ve read a bit of your blog, actually.”

“Really?”

“Come now, John. More enthusiasm than that,” Sherlock said. He’d dumped a mishmash of food onto a plate, then surprised Molly when he handed it to her and started dishing up a second one for himself. (More surprising than the fact that he’d made her up a plate was that he’d bothered to remember which dishes she preferred.) He turned one of those false smiles on Ellie, then said, “People always think it’s _my_ blog.”

“…Oh?” Ellie didn’t seem to know what to say to that.

“Are you staying for lunch?” John asked, ignoring Sherlock. “There’s plenty of food.”

“I don’t—”

“She’s staying,” Sherlock interrupted.

“I promise the rest of us are better behaved than that one,” Mrs. Hudson said, moving through the kitchen so that she was closer to Ellie. “And it’s so nice to meet you. I had no idea Molly had a sister.”

Lunch bumped along surprisingly easily. Sherlock seemed to have decided to treat Ellie the way he treated his own brother—that is to say, rudely with hints of fondness—and Mrs. Hudson spent most of the meal chastising him about it. John did his best to keep conversation light, talking about differences between London and Glasgow, how Ellie had ended up in Glasgow, her job. Greg arrived after a bit, and chatting became even easier because he knew well enough what topics to leave alone.

They weren’t able to linger. John had to get back to the clinic for his afternoon schedule of patients, Mrs. Hudson was due for Zumba with Mrs. Turner, Greg was on a case (Sherlock was interested until Greg gave him the details, a simple B&E—“Not even a two”).

“Well,” Ellie said once it was just them and Sherlock left, “I suppose I should head to the station.”

“I could walk with you, if you’d like,” Molly offered. It would be nice to have a moment just them; it felt like there were things they needed to say to each other.

“No. That’s alright.” Ellie smiled tensely. “I know where it is.”

“I know that, I just—”

“Really, Moll. I’m fine,” Ellie said. “It was good to see you. Thanks for lunch.”

“Okay.”

Ellie had already gone, though, steps quick on the stairs like she was afraid Molly might chase after her.

“I’m really very proud of John,” Sherlock said haughtily after they’d listened to the slam of the front door. “He didn’t make a single twins comment.”

The statement, and the dry delivery, startled a laugh out of Molly. The way his eyes crinkled told her that had been his goal, and it made her heart beat a little faster.

“Are you going to tell me what she was doing here?” Molly asked, turning away from him to finish tidying up after their lunch. “Or is it none of my business?”

“Mycroft already sent you the file,” Sherlock said. He once again surprised her, stepping up beside her and elbowing her out of the way to take over doing the dishes.

“Yes. And Annie brought me coffee.”

“You could go lie down,” he suggested mildly. “You’ve been up a long time. I’ll be out doing legwork the rest of the afternoon, John’s working, and Mrs. Hudson’s off at _Zumba_ , so it will be quiet here.”

“Is she okay, Sherlock?” Molly asked, deciding to ignore his offer for the moment.

“She is,” he said after a moment’s deliberation. “She only came here because she wanted to be sure that you didn’t put me up to it.”

“Put you up to what?”

“Tracking down her attackers.”

“I didn’t know you’d done that.”

He just shrugged, keeping his eyes on his hands as he rinsed the last dish.

“Thank you, Sherlock,” she said, meaning it. She went up on her toes so that she could kiss his cheek.

* * *

She was surprised to be invited around for Christmas again. The last one had gone _so well_. She had half a mind to bow out, and probably would have if it hadn’t been at his parents’ place.

Molly knocked, then let herself into the cottage. It was all decked out for Christmas, pine garlands strung around with colorful baubles on them. There was an iPod docked in the kitchen playing Christmas songs.

Mrs. Holmes and Mycroft were in the kitchen, out cold. Mr. Holmes was in the next room in the same state.

She checked their pulses, took off her coat, checked on them again. They all just seemed to be… sleeping. Drugged?

“I’ve been monitorin’ them. They’re all fine,” Wiggins said, appearing in the doorway to the bathroom.

“What did you do?” she hissed at him.

“They’re all fine. Should be waking up soon,” Wiggins said. “Don’t drink the punch.”

“Wiggins, what did you give them?” she asked. He was quite a bit taller than her, but he flinched away when she marched across the room to get in his face. “What did you do?”

“They’re fine. They’re all fine,” he said. He picked up a slip of paper off the kitchen counter and held it out to her. “He told me to make a list. I promise you, though. They’re okay.”

A list. One of Sherlock’s lists. Just like he made for Mycroft every single time he went for the drugs.

“Who are you, really?” Mrs. Holmes asked from behind her.

“Wiggins, mum,” he said.

“He’s Sherlock’s supplier,” Molly said. Wiggins got a bit of a smug look on his face at that, and Molly couldn’t help herself: Her hand darted out for his nose, crunching the cartilage with the meaty part of her palm.

“Ow! God! What was _that_ for?” Wiggins cried, hands flying to his face. He was a mess of snot and blood and tears, and Molly found that she didn’t care in the least.

“ _Get out_ ,” she snarled at him. “Get out of here, Bill Wiggins, and the next time I see you, it’d better be because you’re on my slab!”

He fled, the front door slamming shut behind him.

“Oh, Sherlock,” Mycroft said, his voice oddly soft. Molly turned to look at him, watched him look around the kitchen, fish his mobile out of his pocket. “Where is he?”

“Not here,” Molly said. “Gone when I got here.”

“And he’s taken my laptop,” Mycroft said. He sighed, deep and disappointed. Then he was on his feet and out the door, calling somebody, speaking low and urgent.

“What happened?” Mr. Holmes asked, standing in the doorway.

“Sherlock’s up to something,” Molly said. She waved the little slip of paper at them, but they didn’t seem to know what it meant.

“Did Mary go with them?” Mrs. Holmes asked.

“No, I’m here,” Mary said, walking into the kitchen and taking a seat at the table.

Then they all turned to look out the window. Mycroft had, apparently, called in a helicopter.

“What are those boys up to?” Mrs. Holmes asked, almost fondly.

“I think Sherlock has done something… not so good,” Molly said. She glanced at Mary. The other woman probably had a fair idea what was going on, judging by the way she was avoiding eye contact.

What Molly really wanted to do was have them all pee in cups so she could be sure Wiggins had stuck to Sherlock’s list, but she didn’t have any lab equipment to run any tests. All of them seemed fine, though, as far as checking their vitals and asking basic questions could ascertain.

She dumped the punch and the tea and any other liquid (even the soup simmering on the stovetop), and made them all drink a big glass of water.

“ _Do_ you know what they’re up to?” Molly asked a bit later, once Mr. and Mrs. Holmes were settled watching a Christmas film.

“Not really,” Mary said. “But it’s probably to do with me.”

Molly nodded, looking down into her tea, frowning.

They passed the rest of the evening in an awkward sort of camaraderie. Mrs. Holmes had made duck, and it was delicious. There was a Christmas cake. Tea. Alcohol. A second batch of punch that nobody wanted to try.

Just when it was becoming awkward—they’d either have to stay the night or call for a ride back into the city—Mycroft returned. He looked worse than she’d ever seen him, and that included the afternoon she’d been called up at Bart’s after he’d had the appendectomy.

His parents swarmed him, peppering him with questions, scolding him for rushing off like that. Mycroft didn’t speak until he had them all sitting down around the dining room table.

“Sherlock has been arrested,” he said bluntly, eyes darting over to Mary before skittering away. He looked at his mother as he continued: “And I can’t get him out of it this time.”

“What are you saying, Mycroft?” Mr. Holmes asked quietly.

“It’s out of my hands.”

* * *

Things were in limbo for almost a week. Nobody was allowed to see him—Sherlock was in some secret holding facility, probably one of those places that didn’t exist in the paperwork. Mycroft wouldn’t answer, nor would Anthea. If Mary and John knew anything (and of course they _did_ ), they were keeping it to themselves.

She missed a call from an unlisted number and didn’t listen to the message until her lunch break. It was Sherlock, calling to tell her goodbye. He apologized for being an arse. He said he wished he could’ve been the sort of person that she deserved, and he hoped she would have a very happy life.

She tried calling him, calling Mycroft, calling John, calling Mary. None of them picked up. She couldn’t think of a thing to say in a message, so she didn’t leave any.

It was absolutely horrible to be caught on the outside. Aware that things were going on, catching glimpses here and there, but only ever getting close to the full picture after the fact.

She suspected she might not ever see him again.

She suspected he’d known it might come to this.

The afternoon dragged on. There was plenty to do; there always was.

She just about threw up when Jim’s face appeared on all the screens in the lab.

“Did you miss me?” the audio asked, a cartoonish computer manipulation of his voice.

“Oh, God,” she said, staring at it. It was on all the computers, all the TVs.

“What’s going on, do you think?” Sanjay asked. They were just standing in the lab, the computers they’d been using to run analysis useless with the current screen displaying.

“I have no idea,” she said honestly.

“You think he’s still alive?” Sanjay actually seemed excited about it. It was all a good story to him—something he followed on the news.

“No,” Molly said definitively. “That one I know is impossible.”

Her phone pinged—she suspected it was about to start doing that a lot—and she was surprised to see that it was a text from Mycroft. He never texted.

YOU WILL BE COLLECTED, the text said. IT IS A PRECAUTION. DO NOT BE ALARMED.

“What in the—” she began, but then they both jumped as five people in full SWAT getup rushed in.

“Miss Hooper, we need you to come with us,” one of them said, a woman Molly didn’t recognize. They showed her ID, government badges. “For your own protection. Quickly now.”

They didn’t give her time to protest. Somebody had collected her things, and she put her jacket on over her lab coat as they hustled her through the halls. There was a large black van waiting at the loading dock, and she climbed in with her armed entourage.

The rest of the day was spent in a government lab, one guard inside with her and another two outside the door. Lady Smallwood’s people had set her to doing busywork on a few cases while she was in protective custody.

It was all over the news. All anybody would talk about. Her phone was blowing up with friends and acquaintances who all just couldn’t believe it and could she believe it and what did she think was going on.

Nothing from Sherlock, though. Or John or Mary.

Greg, at least, had called.

* * *

The following morning, Anthea arrived to collect her and bring her along to Baker Street. Sherlock had OD’d again, and Mycroft wanted somebody to look after him. He was also under house arrest.

“Oh, Sherlock,” she said once they were alone together. He was curled up in his chair, sitting sideways so that he could use the armrest as a pillow.

“I’m fine,” he said, but he didn’t bother trying to get up.

“Do you want me to run you a bath?” she asked.

“Had one yesterday.”

“Not because you need one,” she said, “because it helps. It feels nice.”

“Could you just sit with me instead?” he asked quietly.

“Of course.”

She moved to sit in John’s chair, but he shifted and held a hand out to her. She moved to him, ending up sitting on the arm of his chair with her feet tucked under his thigh, holding him as he leaned into her, stroking his hair absently.

They sat like that for more than an hour. Slowly, the story came out. Mary’s secrets, Magnussen’s blackmail, Sherlock’s misjudgment. He’d been exiled, sent away to go undercover on a mission that Mycroft said would’ve killed him inside a year, and he hadn’t thought there was a reason to care whether he ended up dead sooner.

“They’ve stayed my execution,” he said, his voice steadier than it had been when he’d started his story. “They want me to sort out this new thing with Moriarty.”

“Your game is on once again,” Molly said, not quite able to keep from smiling. Surprisingly, he just sighed. Heavily.

“I’m very tired, Molly.”

“No wonder. You’ve put yourself through a lot.”

“No. Well, yes, but that’s not what I mean.” He sat up a bit. His hand had settled on her thigh and she couldn’t help but think about what Mary had said about casual touches.

“Well?” she prompted, sitting forward a bit so that she could keep playing with the hair at the nape of his neck.

“Magnussen put John in that bonfire to test whether he’d work as a pressure point for me. He was after my brother. To get to my brother, he needed to put pressure on me. To put pressure on me, he needed to put pressure on John.” He sighed, eyes dropping closed as he leaned his head forward to give her better access to his hair; apparently it was as soothing for him as it was for her. “There are so many more pressure points than there ever used to be.”

“You think—whoever posted the video—is going to try to use the people you love against you?”

“I’m sure of it. There are so many more points of weakness than there used to be.”

She was half sure he was about to say something sweet, but then they both heard John arriving back. He was in the process of moving back to his place with Mary, stopping over every day after work to collect a duffel of clothes and such.

Molly leaned in and kissed Sherlock’s temple, then got up and went into the kitchen to start a fresh pot of tea.

“I think I will have that bath,” he said, closing himself in the loo just as John came up.


	17. and baby makes three

Mary gave birth in the back of their car. Sherlock and John had been out on a case—it was all they seemed to do, every waking minute consumed by case after case, anywhere from two to five of them simultaneously—when she’d gone into labor, and they hadn’t made it to the hospital.

Sherlock was working on cases every single time she saw him, whether that was at Bart’s (which only made sense), at his flat, at her flat, at John and Mary’s place. He texted his way through the little welcome-home party they had for the baby. He was on his phone all through the christening.

She wanted to be cross with him; he was desperate to find some lead among his cases to trace back to the Moriarty video, though. In his mind, the more cases he took the more likely it was that he’d find the right thread to pull. And then he could relax.

* * *

“Well, how is everything?” Molly asked, gladly taking Rosie and giving the little one a good snuggle.

“Tired,” Mary said, slouching onto the couch. “Absolutely exhausted.”

“But very cute.”

Mary hummed in agreement, but left her head flopped back against the couch.

“What’s new in your life?” Mary asked after a moment. Molly had almost thought she’d gone to sleep.

“What?”

“Please. Give me _something_ not baby-related to think about. Just for a minute.”

“Actually,” Molly said, laughing, “I might have something for you on that.”

“Really?” Mary sat up a bit, smiling.

“I had my jewelry appraised last week.”

“What brought that on?”

“Well. Um. Sherlock gave me another necklace.”

“ _Another_ necklace?” Mary prompted, smile ticking up a notch. She held her hands out to take Rosie back, and Molly settled on the other end of the sofa.

“You know how clients give him gifts a lot of the time? Cufflinks and such?” Molly asked. Mary nodded. “He doesn’t wear cufflinks, so he has them reset into earrings and things for me.”

“Well that’s… nice of him.”

“Right,” Molly said. Mary obviously wanted to read into it, so Molly pressed on. “This has been going on forever. All sorts of jewelry, just depending on what people are giving him. Though he does sometimes nick his mother’s jewelry to give to me. She and I had to start keeping in touch just to keep ahead of him.”

“You’re in touch with his mum?”

“Shut up,” Molly said, rolling her eyes. “Anyway. He gave me a necklace last week, and after I determined that it wasn’t some heirloom or something, I went to put it away and realized I was running out of space. So I was looking at jewelry boxes, and that got me thinking about if I should maybe find one with a proper lock on it. Long story short, I had my jewelry appraised, and he’s given me just shy of half a million pounds’ worth of jewelry. What the _hell_ am I supposed to do with that information?”

Mary practically cackled with glee.

“ _Really_ , Mary,” Molly said. Mary made an effort to appear calm, fussing with Rosie’s blanket for a moment.

“Let me get this straight, then,” she said. “To your knowledge, you’re the only person he’s slept with in the last almost ten years. He gives you jewelry. He invites you to family functions. He’s manufactured an excuse to put you in contact with his mother… Are you sure you’re not in a proper relationship? An odd, Sherlock Holmes-type relationship, yes, but… Molly, from my angle, it looks like he’s in love with you.”

“He’s not,” Molly said, picking at a loose thread on her sweater. “’Sentiment is a defect in the losing side,’ he says.”

“Well, that almost just proves it,” Mary said.

“What?”

“He could never _admit_ he loved you if he’d told you he’d consider it a failing on his part. He loves you; he doesn’t want to offend you.”

“Mary, stop,” Molly said. “He doesn’t. It’s not like that. It’s _never_ been like that.”

“Molly, I’ve seen the way he looks at you when you’re with my daughter. The man loves you. And he wants to make babies with you.”

“He probably only looks at me in a certain way when I’m with Rosie because he’s thinking of… might-have-beens.”

“Might-have-beens?”

“Right after—when he went away—I found out I was pregnant. I hadn’t even come to terms with the fact of it when I lost it.” She reached out so that Rosie could wrap her little hand around one of her fingers. “The next time he was at my flat, he deduced it before he even said ‘hello.’”

“And?” Mary prompted.

“We had a good cry,” Molly said, shrugging. “He knew it happened. He knew it was his.”

“I’m sorry, Molly. Really.”

“Me too.” Molly shrugged again, then smiled, bouncing Rosie’s hand a bit. “No use dwelling.”

“I still say he’s in love with you,” Mary said after a bit.

“Mary—”

“I’m just saying.”

The talk moved on to other topics. John and Sherlock’s latest case. That recipe for lemon loaf Mrs. Hudson wouldn’t give up. Eventually, it was time for Molly to head out.

“You’d make a really good mum, you know,” Mary said as Molly was putting on her coat.

“What?”

“It’s why we wanted you for godmother,” Mary said, lifting one shoulder in a half shrug. “If anything happened to one or both of us, we knew you’d be good for Rosie. No matter what.”

“What’s bringing this on?” Molly asked. It felt like there was some deeper context behind the statement, but Mary just smiled.

“Nothing.” She leaned in for a hug, then they had to spend a minute detangling because Rosie had grabbed a fistful of Molly’s hair. “Have a good night, Molly. See you next week, yeah?”

“Yeah. See you next week.”

* * *

Not a month later, Mary vanished. John and Sherlock seemed to be expecting it. After about a week, they had her come around to watch Rosie while they went off to bring Mary home.

Rosie was fussy the whole time they were gone. Her routine was off. Her parents weren’t around. She was too little to know what was going on, but she knew something wasn’t right.

And when they all got back, things were tense between John and Mary again. Sherlock, like the last time there had been strife between the Watsons, was fretting. He stopped at Bart’s but didn’t check in on any of his experiments, just stood next to her and didn’t talk for the amount of time it took him to finish the coffee she’d made him, and then he said he was going for a walk.

She _really_ hoped he really was going for a walk. That “a walk” wasn’t his new code for tracking down Wiggins to have something mixed up.

* * *

Sherlock turned up late. Very late, almost midnight. And he looked utterly wrecked.

He was pale, his eye rimmed red like he’d been crying. In fact, when she opened the door (for some reason he’d knocked rather than use his key), tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes before he even opened his mouth to speak.

“What happened?” she asked, taking him by the elbow to draw him inside.

“It’s Mary,” he said.

She couldn’t get another coherent word out of him for several minutes. She locked the door behind him, helped him out of his coat. He stepped out of his shoes and tossed away his suit jacket without prompting. Then he slumped onto the sofa and stared at his hands.

“Sherlock,” she said, “what’s happened to Mary?”

“She’s dead.”

* * *

The rest of the week was horrible. It took her days to get the story out of Sherlock. John was even more a wreck than the detective, and he blamed Sherlock to boot; wouldn’t speak to him, wouldn’t even look at him.

She’d initially taken a few days off to get herself together and to help John make funeral arrangements, but it was quickly clear that he couldn’t be left alone to mind the baby. Or at least he thought he couldn’t. She called Mike and got herself a month’s leave of absence.

Everybody at work was so _sorry_ , so _understanding_. She wanted to shout at them all, but she didn’t.

Mike and Sanjay from work came to the funeral. So did Greg and Sgt. Donovan from the Yard. A few of the crime scene techs who hated Sherlock but enjoyed John’s blog. Mrs. Hudson, the boys from Speedy’s. The clinic where John worked closed for the day so that all the staff could attend.

Molly wasn’t sure Sherlock would go. He hated those sorts of rituals, but he had loved Mary. On the other hand, the last time he’d tried to be in the same room as John, John had raged at him so fiercely he hadn’t even noticed Rosie having a weeping meltdown at the sound of his distress.

Sherlock was there, though. And Mycroft, though Mycroft stayed in the car.

Mary had had everything lined up for them. Like she knew to be prepared. Like she knew, if the worst should happen, John wouldn’t be able to pull himself together to take care of things.

Molly missed her friend terribly, and it only made it worse that Mary had known them all so well.

A quiet ceremony in the church with just a few readings. No eulogies.

Rosie was teething and cried through the whole thing. Molly took her out halfway through, and that was when she found Sherlock lingering at the back of the sanctuary. He’d been crying again.

“Here,” he said softly, holding out his arms and taking Rosie. She was glad for the new person, wrapping one little fist around the lapel of his coat.

“You alright?” Molly asked him. He just shrugged, offering Rosie one of his knuckles to chew on. From his wince, it seemed her tooth had finally broken through.

John didn’t even look their way as he left the church. Didn’t look for his daughter, didn’t look for his best friend.

It should’ve been a gloomy, rainy day, but it was bright and sunny. Like their wedding day.

The priest said a few words graveside. John held Rosie again, the little girl happier out in daylight. Molly stood at the back and held onto Sherlock’s arm—she wasn’t sure which one of them was holding up the other. She hated that half the crowd from the Yard seemed to have come along hoping to see John let loose on Sherlock.

Things got worse from there.

Sherlock was seeing a therapist. John was refusing to see a therapist. Molly had basically moved into John and Mary’s flat to look after Rosie—occasionally spotted by Mrs. Hudson or a sitter.

John went back to work a week after the funeral. He refused to sit at home and do nothing but think about Mary and how she was _gone_. Instead, Molly sat at his home and looked after his daughter and thought about how Mary was gone.

Sherlock turned up on the doorstep on John’s third day back at work. He was back to looking like he always did, which was that much more frustrating to see because she hadn’t so much as been left alone to pee for the last week.

“Hi,” she said. He just nodded, and she decided to cut him some slack for looking put together—he looked like he was afraid to talk because he might start crying again.

“I just wondered how things were going,” he said, “and if there was anything I could do?”

She’d been afraid that was what he was there for. She’d kind of hoped he’d been looking to pick a fight with John, because eventually that would happen (at least judging from the quiet rage John was walking around with burning in his guts). Instead, he was here to be kind. And she’d have to give him the—probably cruel—note John had left.

“It’s from John,” she said, holding it out. Sherlock looked at her as he took it, looking for clues.

“Right.”

“You don’t need to read it now.” She sighed, bouncing Rosie. “I’m sorry, Sherlock. He says—John said—if you were to come around… asking after him, offering to help…”

“Yes.”

“He said—that he’d rather have anyone but you.”

She thought she might cry again. She looked down at Rosie because she absolutely couldn’t look at Sherlock. Then she stepped back inside and closed the door.

She heard Sherlock’s footsteps on the stairs, walking away. Doing as John had asked.

She really, really wanted to go after him. Give him a hug. Let him hold his goddaughter. Talk about Mary together.


	18. unraveling

Things got a little better. John was better with Rosie. More importantly, he was better at seeing when he was having trouble coping. Molly had been able to go back to work, John managing most days between himself and a daycare provided (he had no idea Sherlock had personally vetted the childminder, and she wasn’t about to tell him) and only relying on Molly those evenings where things got to be too much. It had gone from every single day to once or twice a week, so she was calling that better.

For her part, Molly missed her friend. She was glad to have so much time with Rosie, because it kept her focused. It helped her remember that conversation with Mary when all of this must’ve been stirring into motion—when Mary had said she was glad they’d chosen Molly to be godmother because she knew Molly could be good for Rosie even if John wasn’t. She’d started telling Rosie stories about her mum, writing them down in a little notebook so she wouldn’t forget them for when Rosie was older and they’d mean more.

Sherlock had dropped off the face of the earth. He was seeing clients, but Greg said he’d actually forwarded a bunch of them on to the police. Mrs. Hudson said he had a new flatmate, though the man made her nervous—Molly suspected it was Wiggins. She hoped it wasn’t, but it probably was.

* * *

A few weeks after Molly had gone back to work, Mrs. H called. Sherlock was using again. She didn’t know what, exactly, he was taking, but she knew he was taking something. “That new flatmate of his” wouldn’t let her into the kitchen, so wasn’t sure, but she was almost certain that they were cooking drugs on premises.

“I don’t like it, Molly,” Mrs. Hudson said. “It’s worse than opening the fridge and finding body parts. What if there’s an accident? A lot of drugs _explode_ if you don’t make them right!”

Twenty minutes after Mrs. Hudson had rung off, Mycroft called.

“John is being obstinate,” he said rather than ‘hello.’

“His wife just died.”

“Has Sherlock been in touch?” he asked.

“Not for more than a week.”

“He left his flat tonight. First time in weeks.”

“You’re slipping, Mycroft,” she said. She wouldn’t have said it if she wasn’t so tired, but there it was. “He hasn’t picked up or answered a text since Mary died. He came to my flat last Tuesday.”

“Hm.” Mycroft actually sounded troubled by that.

“Goodnight, Mycroft. I’ll let you know if he reaches out.”

“He’s using again,” Mycroft said. For the first time the whole conversation, he sounded like a worried big brother.

“I thought he might be.”

“You don’t sound upset.”

“I’m too tired to be upset. I’ll be upset later.” She dragged a hand across her forehead. Maybe she should look into getting a therapist, herself. “Just have your people drag him off to rehab. Again.”

“It doesn’t work if he doesn’t want to be there.”

“So, what, you’re going to let him kill himself with guilt and drugs?”

“Sherlock is not suicidal.” Mycroft scoffed. “Not on purpose.”

"Whether it's on purpose or not he'd still be dead," Molly said. Then she hung up before he could have his say on that, tell her she was a stupid little goldfish. 

* * *

A week later, Sherlock had turned up at her flat again. Molly was minding Rosie, had just got her down for the night when she heard his key in the lock. Even she could deduce that his hand was shaking from the number of times it took him to insert the key.

She wanted to cry when she saw him. He hadn’t shaved, hadn’t washed, hadn’t changed his clothes in who knew how long. He didn’t reek like he’d been sleeping in a gutter, but that only leant credence to Mrs. Hudson’s hypothesis that he had his supplier at home.

“I wasn’t sure you’d be up,” he said, standing awkwardly in the doorway.

“Well,” she said. “I am.”

“Yes. You are.”

He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Not his usual fluid movements. Jerky, nervous. Like his whole body was sore. It took him forever to get his coat off, but he took it off and hung it on the hook that had somehow become _his_ coat hook.

“When was the last time you ate?” she asked. “Ate _real_ food. Not just chips.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, brushing the question away with a gesture. “I have an odd request for you.”

“Of course you do.”

He either didn’t notice the tone or didn’t care.

“It’s an odd request and you can’t ask me why. I just need you to do it.”

“What do you need?”

Her voice sounded so exhausted, even to her own ears, and it seemed to give Sherlock pause. He looked her over. Not evaluating like he normally did, looking for those little clues that would tell him she had six library books overdue, but looking her over like he cared about her.

“I need you to bring an ambulance to this address,” he said, holding out a slip of paper, “two weeks from today.”

“What?”

“An ambulance. That address. Two weeks.”

His hands were trembling, his pupils were blown. She really, really wanted to ask him why.

“Are you alright, Sherlock?” She knew that he made a point to avoid her—avoid all his friends—when he was using.

“Sort of,” he said. Then he stepped in close to kiss her forehead, looked down into her eyes, kissed her cheek, then left.

He forgot his coat. When she texted him about it, he simply told her to bring that along as well.

She called Mycroft in tears, but he didn’t pick up. She left him a mournful, rambling message that he would probably delete without listening to.

* * *

Exactly two weeks after his visit, she did as he’d asked. The address was out in the suburbs, and it didn’t surprise her that they weren’t the first to arrive.

“You said this was for that Holmes bloke?” Christopher, the driver, asked.

Molly just nodded, looking out the window. There was a flashy car parked half up on the curb; it had knocked over the bins. There was a limo. There were several police cars. And a helicopter overhead.

“Jesus,” she muttered to herself, climbing out. Of course the address he’d given her was the one getting all the attention.

She rang the doorbell, and, of all people, John answered.

“Um. Hello,” she said. “Is, uh—I’m sorry. Sherlock asked me to come.”

“What, two weeks ago?”

Oh, he was angry. Furious.

“Yeah,” she said. “About two weeks.”

“If you’d like to know _how_ I predict the future—” Sherlock said, waltzing down the hall behind John. He looked even worse than he had when she’d last seen him. The beard was coming in patchily. She highly doubted he’d bathed recently, going by the state of his hair.

“No, I don’t _care_ how,” John shot back.

“Okay,” Sherlock said. “Fully equipped ambulance. Molly can examine me on the way. Save time. Ready to go, Molly?”

“Um, where—”

“Just tell me when to cough.”

Oh, she’d tell him when to cough. He was officially pushing her past “concerned about him” and straight into “mad as hell at him.”

“I hope you remembered my coat,” he said, brushing past her.

Molly spluttered. For some reason, it was a surprise that he didn’t reek. For all that he looked like hell, he’d seen to basic hygiene recently.

“I’m sorry,” Molly said, looking to John. “I didn’t know that you were going to be here. I’ve honestly no idea what’s going on.”

“Sherlock’s using again,” John said. Like that was somehow supposed to surprise her.

“Oh, God,” she said. “Are you sure.”

“No, it’s Sherlock. Of course I’m not sure.”

It was a little bit devastating how much John simply didn’t trust Sherlock. All the lies and manipulations he’d seen pulled off, and then Mary’s death. Was it the final straw? Were they broken?

They couldn’t be broken. They were John and Sherlock. From day one they’d been perfect for each other.

“Check him out,” John said, softer.

Molly couldn’t think of anything to say that would make anything better, so she turned around and walked over to join Sherlock in the ambulance. He was already sitting, stripped down to his t-shirt. He looked sore and exhausted, but when he saw her coming he pulled a cartoonishly cheerful face. It made her want to smack him.

* * *

It was the most horrible chunk of time she’d ever spent with him.

The veins in his arms had begun to give out. The injection sites there were a mess. His kidneys were on the verge of failure. Malnourished. Dehydrated. Just everything about the physical examination was horrifying, made worse by his stream-of-conscious commentary on every single thing.

When they arrived at wherever they’d been headed, Molly jumped out and sat on the back, wondering if she was going to be sick. She didn’t even have it in her to slap him again because she worried it might kill him.

“Well?” John asked when he got out of the limo that pulled up behind the ambulance. “How is he?”

“Basically fine,” Sherlock said. He’d been dressing in the clothes she’d brought along for him.

“I’ve seen healthier people on the slab,” she said.

“Yeah, but to be fair you work with murder victims,” Sherlock said. “They tend to be quite young.”

“Not funny,” she said. All the anger had gone out of her. She was just sad for him.

“Little bit funny,” he said.

“If you keep taking what you’re taking at the rate you’re taking it, you’ve got weeks.”

“Exactly,” he said. “Weeks. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“For Christ’s sake, Sherlock, it’s not a game!”

Oh, there was the anger. Back again.

Maybe John’s new therapist would give them all a group rate.

“I’m worried about you, Molly, you seem very stressed,” he said. She wanted to hit him again.

“I’m stressed. You’re dying.”

“Yeah, well I’m ahead then,” he quipped. “Stress can ruin every day of your life. Dying can only ruin one.”

“So this is real? You’ve really lost it. You’re actually out of control,” John said.

“When have I ever been that?”

“Since the day I met you.”

“Oh, clever boy. I missed you fumbling around the place.”

“I thought this was some kind of—”

“What.”

“Trick,” John said.

“It’s not a trick, it’s a plan,” said Sherlock.

“Mr. Holmes!”

“Thirty feet and closing,” Sherlock said, turning to John and speaking very fast. Probably the cocaine. “The most significant undetected serial killer in British criminal history. Help me bring him down.”

“What—what plan?”

“I’m not telling.”

“Why not?”

“Because you won’t like it.”

“Mr. Holmes!” the weird man from the telly said. “I don’t do handshakes. It’ll have to be a hug.”

“I know.”

Molly stood back and watched. The three of them walked away surrounded by a crowd of oblivious onlookers and PR people. Molly sat on the back of the ambulance again and tried not to cry.

* * *

She got a call later. He’d been admitted to the hospital.

She called Mycroft. She couldn’t deal with it. Couldn’t see him. Couldn’t listen to him be flippant about how he was literally killing himself.

* * *

She didn’t see him again until after his birthday. He and John seemed to be working on reconciling. John was the one who picked him up from the hospital, brought him back to Baker Street. John even arranged a schedule for everybody to keep an eye on him—“keep him off the sweeties.”

GOING FOR CAKE, John texted not quite twenty minutes before she was supposed to take over for him, sending a link to a place around the corner from Sherlock’s flat.

MEET YOU THERE, she sent back. She was almost glad the first time she’d see him would be in a public place. She was less likely to cry.

She’d been going back and forth with her reaction to the whole thing. The drugs. Mary’s death.

She was ashamed of herself for not looking out for him. She’d been doing it for years; he was supposed to be able to depend on her. And he’d needed her, but she hadn’t been there. She’d been too busy being there for John, for Rosie. She couldn’t be ashamed about that, but still felt like she’d failed him. And she hated that she felt that way, because he had never once reached out for help.

She was very conflicted.

She really did have to ask John for that therapist’s number.

The cake place was a little corner shop, bustling with people popping in to pick up something for dessert. Molly found a booth a bit away from the front and sat down facing the door so she’d see them come in.

* * *

Sherlock was about ready to fall over by the time they got back to Baker Street. He’d held up fairly well for the not-quite-an-hour they’d spent at the cake shop, sitting and chatting, but when John announced he had to go fetch Rosie he’d stopped putting a brave face on it.

They’d said their goodbyes to John, and Molly had taken his arm—Sherlock put on a good show of looking like he was escorting her, though he was leaning nearly half his weight on her. They had to stop to rest at the foot of the steps before they made their way up to his flat.

“You sit down; I’ll make tea,” Molly said, hanging her bag up on one of the hooks before helping him off with his coat then taking her own off as well.

“No tea,” he said. He looked like he very much wanted to flop down onto the sofa, but he sat gingerly instead.

“Can I get you something else, then?” she asked. “And don’t say drugs.”

“I really wasn’t,” he said, waving at the spot next to him on the couch. “I think I’m too old for it. I really didn’t enjoy it at all this last time.”

“Good,” Molly said, more sharply than she’d meant to. She sat down beside him and began to fidget with the hem of her jumper. “I really didn’t enjoy this last time, either.”

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. He reached over and took her hand in his, pulling her fingers away from the thread she’d pulled loose.

She wrapped her other hand around his and squeezed gently. He apologized so rarely, but when he did he was very good at sounding sincere. She liked to think he meant it.

“Sherlock?” she asked, deciding to change the subject before they both got to thinking about Mary and being sad all over again. “Why does John think it’s your birthday?”

“Hm?” He was trying to avoid the question. He’d tipped his head back against the couch while he held her hand, letting his eyes drift closed. He was conspicuously still. She hadn’t realized his thumb had been rubbing a little circle against her palm until he’d tensed up and stopped.

“I signed your death certificate. Your birthday was the sixth. Why does John think it’s today?” Only a few days late, but John had seemed so sure that it was _today_.

“Send me a text message,” he said, easing himself into sitting upright again. He let go of her hand to shift so that he was turned sideways on the couch to face her.

“What?”

“Send me a text. A smiley face. Anything you like.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, but fetched her mobile from her coat pocket and sent him a question mark.

His mobile made that moaning noise. The rude one from the Christmas party all those years ago.

“Sherlock! Is that my text alert noise? Why is that my text alert noise?”

“Because I was completely off my tits and I thought it was funny,” he said, grinning crookedly at her as she rejoined him on the couch.

“So when I texted to tell you I’d just got off the Tube, your mobile made that noise and John thought it was that woman telling you, what, happy birthday?”

“Yep.”

Molly rubbed at her forehead, feeling more tired than ever.

“He thinks I’m in love with her. Or she’s in love with me. Both?” He scowled at his mobile thoughtfully. “Neither of which is true. She prefers women. I prefer not having to jump through elaborate mental hoops about ramifications in some larger game on the occasion when I find myself seeking a bed partner.”

She nudged his knee with her own companionably, deciding to take that as a compliment.

“He made a good speech, though.”

“John?”

“Mm.”

“Will you change my text alert?”

“Oh, but I like that one,” he said, fixing her with a wicked look. “It confuses everyone in the room. And I happen to know you make a very similar noise…”

“Sherlock,” she chided. It was odd that he’d referenced going to bed together twice in the same conversation. He was either trying to suggest they go to bed—unlikely on account of his physical condition—or trying to make her uncomfortable—highly probable, but not going to be so easy as that.

“Fine,” he said, not quite pouting. He fiddled with his phone, then tossed it on the coffee table. She sent him a smiley face, and this time it made the usual pinging noise as every other text alert.

“Thank you.”

* * *

Molly had to work in the morning, but Sherlock had decided he’d go along with her. Greg was supposed to take over for her; he’d had an overnight shift, though, and it wasn’t difficult to convince him to go home.

“There’s a sofa in your office. I’ll nap on that,” Sherlock said. “I’m useless for anything else, anyway.”

“Sherlock…”

“I’ll have my mobile. And we’ll be in a hospital already if it turns out I’ve overexerted myself.”

“…Fine.”

Thus, she spent her morning going through her usual routine, catching up on emails, checking over reports. She checked in on him every hour or so, bringing him tea. He mostly slept.

It was very strange.

She checked on him at lunch, surprised to find him upright. He was sitting on the end of the couch in her office, elbows resting on his knees and his head in his hands. The blanket she’d brought along from 221 was strewn on the couch beside him.

For some reason, seeing him there in her office in his socks and a frizzy mess of curls made her feel for him even more than seeing him miserable curled up his chair at his flat did.

“How are you doing?” she asked, rolling her desk chair around so that she could sit facing him. He just shrugged and didn’t look up. “You’re due for a few doses, okay?”

Naltrexone and an antidepressant. How many times had they been through this same cycle? The combination left him only slightly less miserable than he was without the pills.

“Why do you do this for me?” Sherlock asked after he’d taken his pills and finished off the bottle of water she’d handed him.

“You’re my friend,” Molly said, taking the empty bottle and turning to put it in the recycle bin. She took out her mobile and updated the Google doc shared between her, John, Greg and Mycroft tracking Sherlock’s medications. (Technically Mrs. Hudson had access to the doc as well, but she’d said she could never sort out how to work the thing and she’d just bring him tea rather than being responsible for medications.)

“But _why_ , Molly?” He flopped backwards, sinking petulantly into the cushions. He was pale, his eyes sunken and rimmed red, sweating even though the room wasn’t especially warm. “I’m horrible to you. Always have been.”

“You’re not,” she said, because it was true. “Friendship isn’t transactional, Sherlock. Sometimes, yes, you are rude to me. But you’ve never ditched me when I’m grumpy and take it out on you.”

“You’re funny when you’re angry,” he said, smiling without opening his eyes. “Never told you that because I figured it’s not the sort of thing you say to somebody when they’re angry.”

“Figured that out all on your own, hm?”

“John helped.”

Molly smiled. John had indeed helped with a good many things.

“I have cold sandwiches for lunch, if you’re feeling up to trying to eat,” she said, pulling out the bag she’d packed. “There’s also some raw fruits and veggies if the sandwich seems too much.”

Sherlock nodded, shifting so that she could sit next to him and set up their lunch on the seat of her desk chair. She’d packed it like she was packing for a bunch of kids in primary school. Grapes, apple slices, cheese slices, carrot sticks, celery sticks. Everything but a couple juice boxes.

Molly ate her sandwich and Sherlock picked at the snack foods, managing some carrots and grapes before his appetite gave out.

“Would you like tea? Something warm?” she asked him, but he just shook his head.

“Molly, can I ask you a question?”

“Course.”

“Do people always… _talk_ about me? About us?”

“About us?” she asked, eyebrows raised.

“There were students in the hall earlier. Just talking.” He reached forward and took another grape off the bunch, rolling it across his palm rather than eating it. “One of them saw your nameplate on the door and mentioned to the other that you were that doctor that was always bending over backwards to help me.”

“Well—”

“They didn’t mean it in a nice way,” he said, frowning. He looked strangely like a little boy, like he was sitting there trying to understand why a particular bully had chosen him among the rest. “They were being mean.”

“They’re students, Sherlock,” Molly said, taking the grape from him so that she could hold his hands. “They don’t know me or you. It’s all rumors and reputations.”

“Which reputation?” he asked, looking somewhere between lost and amused. “Seven Times a Night At Baker Street, or the Virgin?”

“Neither,” Molly said, unable to keep herself from smiling. “You’re the handsome consultant who sweeps in here and out-clevers everyone. They all read John’s blog.”

“The Virgin, then,” he said, rolling his eyes. Molly squeezed his hand once then let him go, picking up her sandwich again.

“The only thing they see of you is when you’re on a case, ignoring everything but the puzzle in front of you,” she said.

“It doesn’t bother you?”

“That you’re good at what you do? No.”

“No.” He waved a hand, dispelling her answer. “It doesn’t bother you that they all think I do nothing but take advantage of you? That they can’t see how important you are?”

Molly smiled awkwardly, trying not to blush. Sherlock either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

“It used to, a bit,” she said. “I don’t really care what anybody thinks of me anymore. Too old for it, maybe.”

“You’re not too old for anything, Molly.”

“You’re just saying that because we’re so close to the same age.”

He smiled, and it was an oddly sweet smile. He really was worn out from his recovery if he’d slipped so far as to openly showing a bit of sentiment on his face.

To her surprise, he sat forward and kissed her. Just briefly. Not passionately but not chastely, either.


	19. having quite a lot of sex

It was one of those quiet nights that reminded her, oddly, of that brief chunk of time where things had nearly been perfect. When John had softened some of the brittle edges off Sherlock, but they hadn’t been all wrapped up in their own baggage just yet.

She’d texted Greg to let him know that she had to stop at her place to change before taking over for him at Baker Street. Greg and Sherlock had turned up just as she’d been about to leave, Sherlock rattling off some excuse about an experiment he wanted to do on her cat.

“I figured I’d let you be the one to tell him no,” Greg had said, his eyes sparkling when he smiled. “He never listens to me when science is involved.”

“Sherlock, this had better be a ‘tuna or sardines’ sort of experiment not a ‘lets shave the cat’ experiment.”

Greg had just laughed and closed the door on his way out.

She and Sherlock had settled in for the evening after that. He was one of the few people Toby actually liked—probably because of those tuna or sardines sorts of experiments—and he’d parked himself on her couch with her laptop and her cat. Molly had made them dinner. She’d left them watching crap telly while she showered.

When she got out of the shower, Toby had curled up on one of the armchairs and Sherlock had her laptop out again, tackling the backlog of client emails if the scowl on his face was anything to go on.

“Anything interesting?” she asked, going into the kitchen to make them tea.

Sherlock grunted. She wasn’t sure if it was an acknowledgement that he’d heard her speaking or an answer to her question. It made her smile.

He’d set the laptop aside—still scowling at it, though—when she brought their tea and his evening pills out.

“Thank you, Molly,” he said, surprising her.

“You’re welcome.”

She sat next to him, letting herself cuddle into his side when he put his arm up on the back of the couch. They sat like that until the tea was gone and the sunset out the windows had faded into dusky darkness.

“Bed, I think,” Molly said. Neither of them were really watching the show.

Sherlock groaned in protest when she got up, and she had to laugh at him a bit. She collected their mugs, putting them in the sink to deal with in the morning.

“Come back,” Sherlock whined, eyes closed and head leaning back against the couch cushion. “You were warm.”

“Nope, going to bed,” she said, turning the lights off and checking the door was locked as she went.

He followed her, crowding into her personal space while they brushed their teeth. He gave the impression he didn’t realize he was doing it, but she knew him better than that. She finished before him, but stayed next to the sink with him, not quite leaning against his back. He was warm, too.

They went back into the bedroom, and Molly turned the covers down. She was expecting a night of extra-cuddly Sherlock, looking forward to it, but he put a hand on her shoulder when she started to get into bed. He turned her so that she was kneeling on the bed facing him.

“What are you—”

He cut off the question with a gentle kiss. It was relief at having it made through those weeks of the shaking and sweating, and it was thank you, and it was a hundred other little things that he would never say to her with words.

“Sherlock—” Because there were conversations they needed to have before they did this again. Nevermind the paperwork—she’d seen all his workups, and there hadn’t been anybody but him for her.

“Molly,” he rumbled against her lips, his fingers teasing down her throat and across her collarbones.

Sherlock moved back to pull her shirt up and off. He pushed her backwards, encouraging her to lie back on the bed as he crawled onto it, kneeling over her. His lips found her nipple, nibbling and teasing, and his fingers trailed burning paths up and down her sides, tickling along the waistband of her pajama bottoms. Asking permission.

“ _Sherlock_ ,” she moaned. It should’ve been a protest—she should’ve insisted they talk like real adults—but it was the farthest thing from it.

He consumed her. She’d never met anybody who could kiss her the way he did. Tonight he tasted like toothpaste.

Molly wound her fists into his sleep shirt and tugged at it. It was hard to focus with his tongue in her mouth and his fingers against her clit, but she wanted to feel him. Wanted his skin against her chest.

She finally got his shirt over his head, tossing it away and looking up at him in the near-dark of the room. Light filtering in through the window illuminated just enough that she could see his curls frizzed up in a mess of static. It made her smile.

He had new scars on his forearms, but it was too dark to see them. She didn’t want to think about them. She wanted to think about all the ways she could make him feel glad to be alive. Glad to be sober and in her bed.

Molly pushed herself up on her elbows to kiss the underside of his jaw. She wanted to taste his skin. She wanted to put her own marks all over him again. Instead, she nipped at the spot below his ear. The spot he liked.

“Fuck,” he muttered, his whole body spasming against hers, thrusting half involuntarily. Molly smiled against his neck. “ _Molly_.”

“Pants,” Molly said, pulling back from him again, hooking her fingers into the fabric at her waist. “Pants off. Now.”

They shifted around in the bed for a moment, taking off pajama bottoms and underwear, kicking the clothes off the side of the bed. She ended up taking his hands and turning them so that he was pressed to the mattress beneath her, holding his hands against the pillows.

“Like this tonight?” she asked him. He let her hold him down even as he writhed and moaned while she kissed his neck, his chest, swirled her tongue around his nipples, ground herself against him. “Tell me what you want.”

“You,” he said, his neck arching forward as he tried to chase her lips with his own before he gave it up and pressed his head back into the pillows, eyes squeezed shut. “Just you.”

“I’m pretty much a sure thing, here, William Sherlock,” she said, as light and teasing as she could while she was grinding herself against him. She let go of his hands so that she could lean back, shifting her weight so she was mostly sitting on his thighs. His cock jutted up between them, begging for contact.

“Fuck,” he said again. She really loved when she could reduce him to monosyllables. “Would you—?”

Molly nodded and raised up on her knees. She wrapped her hand around his cock, stroking not quite gently, teasing at his foreskin the way he liked. His hands found her waist, guiding her down onto his shaft. They both held their breath as she rocked her hips, easing him into her. She put her hands low on his abdomen once his cock didn’t need to be guided anymore, enjoying his little shivers of pleasure.

“Wait,” he said once he was fully seated inside her. “Not yet. Hold like that a moment.”

“Sherlock,” she said, not quite whining. She wanted to move. Actually, she wanted him to fuck her into the mattress, but she didn’t think he was up for that yet.

“This is… exquisite.”

“Mmhm,” she hummed in agreement. It really was. He filled her up, and it felt fantastic. Even without any friction, it had been so long since she’d had him inside her that she could feel her quim fluttering around him. It wouldn’t take much for him to get her off tonight.

“Molly—” He began to protest when she started rolling her hips.

“ _Please_.” She couldn’t wait.

He grunted. She wasn’t sure if it was meant as some sort of communication or if it was just a noise. Either way, he wrapped his hands around her hips and pulled her tight against him. She grabbed the headboard behind him and let him guide her movements as she rode him.

He was right. It was exquisite.

* * *

“May I?” she asked.

He was restless, had been all day. Any other time, she would’ve suggested they go for a walk—probably a _long_ walk—to work off some of that energy. It was raining like a pissing cow out there, though.

“What?”

“Please?”

He looked at her, brow crinkling, but nodded. She knelt at his feet, moving forward when he spread his knees obligingly.

He stifled a groan, turning it into a grunt somewhere at the back of his throat when she opened his trousers and tucked his pants under his bollocks. She leaned forward, burying her nose in him. The humid scent of him _did_ something to her.

Molly trailed wet kisses along his shaft before suckling at his sack. Her fingers soothed the skin of his inner thighs, then cupped his balls when she moved her mouth to the head of his penis. She teased his sack with one hand and moved the other along his shaft while she swirled her tongue around the head of his cock.

Molly set a steady rhythm, taking him a little deeper into her mouth each time, hollowing out her cheeks as she sucked him. Sherlock grunted, that same stifled groaning noise; it made her want to suck harder, open up her throat and take as much of him as she could without gagging, try to get a proper moan out of him.

“Molly,” he said, barely a whisper. She looked up, holding his eye as she swallowed him down again.

He groaned, higher this time, more of a whine. He wove his hand into her hair, taking control of the pace, matching her movement to the little twitches of his hips. She put her hands on his thighs, ready to push back if she needed to (but she’d never needed to before; even lost in lust, Sherlock never let her choke), breathing through her nose as he fucked her mouth.

He thrust his hips up to her; she sucked hard as she swallowed him down, and he finally let go. That low, satisfied rumble of release that she felt through his skin as much as she heard it.

He'd pulled back a bit at the last moment, making a mess all over her chin and throat when he'd come. He gave her a vaguely troubled sort of look, but she was just glad she'd had the foresight to leave her hair pulled back. She tucked him away in his pants and did up his trousers again. She looked him in the eye when she licked her lips, and he groaned again. She smiled (maybe a bit wickedly). 

"Better?" she asked, standing up to go wash her face. He was limp in his chair, relaxed for the first time she'd seen all day.

“You’re fishing for compliments,” he said, but his tone was light and there was a lazy sort of smile on his face.

He was still relaxed in his chair when she returned to the lounge. She kissed his cheek and handed him a fresh cup of tea before settling into John's chair for another round of backgammon.

* * *

They’d never had the sort of relationship where they were overtaken by passion. There had usually been some sort of loose plan, or at least some sort of mutual intention that sex would be happening.

It was an odd thought to cross her mind, particularly because, especially of late, there had been quite a bit of passion between them. It had just never been the bent-over-a-chair sort of passion.

The rotation to keep an eye on him was officially over, but she’d brought him groceries. He never thought of that sort of thing even when he wasn’t recovering from hospitalization and withdrawal and all that. Mrs. Hudson had been there, they’d chatted, Molly had said she was sticking around long enough to be sure he got at least one proper meal out of the food she’d brought.

Shortly after Mrs. H went back down to her own flat, Sherlock had locked the door, wrapped his arms around her, and snogged the sense out of her brain. She’d ended up with her work khakis in a tangle around her ankles, barely keeping her balance holding onto the arm of his chair. He had one arm around her waist, fingers playing her clit as well as they’d ever played his violin, his other hand scrunched up in her hair holding her head just where he wanted it so he could kiss her over her shoulder while he thrust into her.

She came hard. She would’ve fallen forward onto his chair if he hadn’t tightened his hold, sinking deep into her one last time as he came. His groan was deep and low, muffled against her shoulder.

* * *

“What are we doing?” she asked him. It had been weeks. They were in his bed again. It was the middle of the afternoon. Her day off. They were watching Rosie while John was at work, and Sherlock had dragged her to the bedroom the moment Rosie had gone down for her nap.

“Celebrating being alive,” Sherlock said, tracking little nipping kisses all over the insides of her thighs.

“Oh, is that it?” she asked, striving for some sort of rationality. It was difficult when he seemed to have challenged himself to see how many orgasms he could tease out of her before Rosie woke from her nap. 


	20. compounded problems, pt 1

It had been a rotten day. Just rotten.

Molly had had the overnight shift at Bart’s. Usually, that was a time for catching on lab work and paperwork and such, but the Yard had brought in three children just before midnight—DI Dimmock needed to know how they’d died; the suspicion was carbon monoxide poisoning, as their parents had been rushed to the hospital for it, but he wanted to be completely sure.

Postmortems on children had always been the worst.

Being pregnant (again) made them even more horrible.

That was the other half of the rotten day. She’d been stupid. She’d been in the process of switching from the pill back to an IUD when Mary had died; she hadn’t refilled her prescription and hadn’t scheduled an appointment for insertion since the only man she had any plans to sleep with had taken a flying leap of the wagon. And yet, as Sherlock had slogged his way through recovery, it hadn’t even crossed her mind to make that appointment.

They hadn’t used condoms. Not once.

No excuse. They just hadn’t.

They hadn’t used condoms before that, either. As far back as the weekend in Paris, so far as she could remember. She’d been on birth control then, but still. Reckless.

The logical part of her brain was ticking away, like it had before—there were appointments to make, conversations to be had. Sherlock was around this time, at least.

She’d been so busy keeping track of Sherlock’s medications, her work schedule, the Sherlock-watching schedule, the Rosie-minding schedule, that she hadn’t been tracking her period. She knew it was very late, though. Very, very late.

She didn’t want to terminate. She’d known that the first time, and this time was no different. If Sherlock didn’t want anything to do with it, that was fine. It would probably be awkward, but it would be fine.

She really, really hoped he wouldn’t think it was some sort of entrapment baby. That it had been a conscious effort. She hadn’t thought about it at all until she’d been in the feminine hygiene section and it had occurred to her that she hadn’t had to stock up on tampons in a while. (And then she’d grabbed a pregnancy test instead.)

At least she wasn’t experiencing any overt symptoms yet—no “morning sickness” or anything. She was tired, but that was probably due to her weird schedule as much as anything.

The shift passed quickly; she had plenty of work to do. At the end of it, she dragged herself home and had a good cry in the shower before dropping her blackout curtains and going to bed.

Her sleep had been restless at best. Fitful. Plagued by vague nightmares and long stretches of wakefulness.

Eventually, she’d given it up, dressed, made herself toast. Of all people, she had a strange desire to call Sherlock’s mum. She needed that Mrs. Holmes warmth, her ability to keep Molly company without any pressure for explaining why she was calling. The Holmes parents were just finishing up some dancing thing in the States, though, and would either be headed to the airport or already on a plane back home.

Instead, she’d called Mrs. Hudson only to find out that Baker Street had been literally blown up.

“I’m in a hotel now, dear. That hateful brother of Sherlock’s put me up—as well he should; he was the one the grenade was meant for as far as I was able to tell,” Mrs. Hudson said. She sounded like enough time had passed that it was more an exciting story—like her time ‘typing’ for the cartel—than anything more harrowing.

“You’re really alright?” Molly asking. “Should I come ‘round?”

“No, dear, I’ll be fine. The boys are chasing down their suspect, and I’ve got a list of building inspectors and contractors to call,” she said with a laugh. “And I’ve got Rosie keeping me company. Thank you for checking in on me, though.”

“’Course.”

“I’ll talk to you later, dear.”

And she’d rung off.

Which left Molly alone in her flat again, toast gone cold and uneaten, still feeling miserably vulnerable and now worried about her friends on top of it. A quick Google pulled up a few short articles on the explosion at Baker Street—apparently, John and Sherlock had jumped out the front windows; everybody was very excited to learn what had been going on in some upcoming post to John’s blog.

Molly called John, left a message saying she’d heard about the explosion and hoped he was really okay and not just telling Mrs. H so, offering to take over watching Rosie if he thought their investigation might go late. She texted Sherlock, offering her couch if he needed a place. He’d take the bed, of course, if he did. (But their mobiles were absolutely being monitored and there was something off-putting about the idea of offering him her bed going down in some report.)

She tried to nap again, but she couldn’t settle. She counted in her head over and over again—best guess was counting 40 weeks from the start of her last period to estimate her due date, so that put her at almost 6 weeks along. If she was remembering her last period right, and that wasn’t a guarantee. She might be closer to 7 or 8 weeks.

That was _halfway_ through the first trimester. Possibly more than that. _How_ had she missed it? She was a goddamn medical doctor.

Finally, she decided she’d have a cup of tea.

Her mobile rang, but it was Sherlock. If he was on a case, he’d want something from the lab. It was surprising, really—some days it seemed like he knew her schedule better than she did; he should’ve known she wouldn’t be at work. And she really, really wasn’t mentally or emotionally prepared to have the “hey I’m pregnant what the hell should we do?” conversation at the moment.

She let it ring through the voicemail, but he called right back rather than leaving a message.

“Hello, Sherlock,” she said. “Is this urgent? Because I’m not having a good day.”

“Molly, I just want you to do something very easy for me and not ask why.”

“Oh, God. Is this one of your stupid games?” Because she was absolutely not in the mood.

“No. It’s not a game. I need you to help me.”

“Well, I’m not at the lab.”

“It’s not about that.”

“Well. Quickly then,” she said, waiting. But he didn’t say anything. “Sherlock. What is it? What do you want?”

“Molly—please?—without asking why, just say these words.”

“What words?”

“I love you.”

Oh, Jesus. Because she needed _that_ Sherlock today. The manipulator. The insensitive arse.

“Leave me alone.”

“Molly, no, _please_ , no, don’t hang up! Do not hang up.”

She wondered if they were having a good laugh. Sherlock and whoever he was with. Probably not John, because John would’ve made him stop it, would’ve hit him or something.

“Why are you doing this to me?” she asked. For once, it would be nice if he just told her the truth. That high-functioning sociopath shit had gone stale years and years ago; she knew him too well for that. “Why are you making fun of me?”

“Please, I swear to you, I just need you to listen.”

_Listen_. Like he ever goddamn listened. She was only pregnant with his child, and he had no idea because he hadn’t so much as said ‘hello’ or asked why she’d said she wasn’t having a good day. Hadn’t so much as told her that he could tell by the way she said ‘hello’ and not ‘hi’ that she was writhing with guilt about being so stupid as to get accidentally knocked up. Again.

“Molly.” His tone was almost whiny. “This is for a case. It’s a sort of experiment.”

“I’m not an experiment. Sherlock.”

“No, I know you’re not an experiment. You’re my friend.” It came out in a rush, softer than before. “We’re friends. But. Please. Just say those words for me.”

Some friend.

“Please don’t do this,” she said. “Just—just don’t do it.”

“It’s very important. I can’t say why,” he said. “But I promise you it is.”

“I can’t say that. I can’t… I can’t say that to you.”

“Of course you can. Why can’t you?”

“You know why.” And if he said he didn’t, he was lying.

“No, I don’t know why,” he said.

“Of course you do,” she said with a sigh. There was a pause, and she almost thought he was going to let it drop.

“Please. Just say it,” he said.

“I can’t,” she said. “Not to you.”

“Why?”

He almost sounded offended. Like he knew she’d said it to other people, other friends, and refusing to say it to him was some sort of personal attack.

“Because… Because it’s true,” she said. “Because it’s true, Sherlock.”

The tears started up, then. She wanted to blame hormones, blame her own stupidity, blame so many things, but it didn’t matter. The father of her child was willfully ripping her heart out, probably just to see if it could keep beating after the fact. A curiosity, the human heart. A weakness. Something to be observed and disdained.

Stupid Molly and her stupid heart.

“It’s always been true,” she added, because what was the point not to say it. She’d probably fallen in love with him standing over the corpse of Martha Marie Lennox.

“If it’s true, just say it anyway,” he said. The soft tone was back.

Bastard. _This_ was the man who she wanted to play father to her child? Biology aside. _This_ arsehole?

The anger made it easier to will the tears away, though.

“You bastard.”

“Say it anyway.” An order now. Directions. Commands.

“You say it,” she said. “Go on. You say it first.”

She’d had enough of his shit. If he and whoever was with him wanted to have a laugh at her expense, he wasn’t getting it for free.

“What?”

“Say it,” she told him. “Say it like you mean it.”

“I… I love you,” he said. “I love you.”

The second time almost sounded convincing, even.

She almost hung up then. She didn’t want to be part of it anymore. Didn’t want anything to do with him or his games.

“Molly.”

_Just hang up. End the call_ , she told herself. _He doesn’t deserve it_.

“Molly, please.”

“I love you.”

And he disconnected the call.

“Oh, you _arse_ ,” she said. She threw her mobile down on the island counter and it skittered away, almost fell off the other side.

She dumped the tea, rinsed out the cup. Her hands weren’t shaking, which was strange. She’d expected them to be shaking.

Molly stalked into the living room, not sure if she was sad or furious or some mixture of them both (topped with that overriding anxiety about being pregnant again), and flopped down onto the couch. She folded her hands over her stomach and glared up at the ceiling.

She jumped up not a minute later, retrieving her mobile from its precarious position on the edge of the counter and calling John. It didn’t even ring, just went straight to voicemail.

“What the _hell_ was that about?” she shouted, then disconnected.

Molly paced the length of her living room, tapping her mobile against her palm. The more she paced, though, the more she started to think.

She tried John again, but again it just went directly to voicemail.

“Sorry for shouting,” she said in her second message. “Call me when you get this.”

Then, gritting her teeth, she tried Sherlock. But it did the same.

“Call me when you get this,” she said again. “ _Not_ when you’ve decided what to say to me. Call me the moment you finish listening to this message, Sherlock.”

She paced some more.

She started to replay the conversation in her mind and had to sit down to put her head between her knees. She felt like she was going to throw up.

Whatever it had been about, their relationship had just been blown to bits. Their friendship. Whatever their friendship had been morphing into—because it _had_ been changing, developing, in these last few months since Mary had died.

God, she really missed Mary. She’d give anything to talk to Mary Watson again. 

She sat up, scrubbing her hands over her face.

Mary probably would’ve told her to look at Sherlock’s actions rather than listening to his words. It was like when she’d pointed out that he didn’t like casual touching, but he almost completely lacked that boundary when it came to Molly herself…

Well, there was the jewelry. If the gifts had come from anybody else, they would’ve been tokens of affection. Probably a deep, lasting sort of affection, on account of they’d cost him a literal fortune.

And the jewelry he’d taken from his mother. There was something in that, too. Those were the sorts of pieces that were family heirlooms, gifted down generations. Gifts from a husband to a wife.

Not to mention he’d used those sort-of-stolen bits of jewelry as a way to build a bridge between her and his family.

He made a practice of remembering how she took her coffee and her tea. Not only that, but he knew how her preference changed based on the season and the weather and the location.

He laughed at her jokes, or at least smiled at them. Or, if he didn’t find whatever she’d said funny, he’d at least look her in the eye to acknowledge that he knew she was joking so she didn’t stand there thinking she’d made a complete idiot of herself.

He had her listed as his emergency contact. Not John. Not Mycroft. Her.

He had her work rotation memorized, and used that not only to take advantage of her lenience where lab supplies were concerned but to be there on her breaks so that they could have coffee together.

When he was ill, when he was recovering from his latest intravenous vacation, he wanted her near.

He had made a point not to delete the important dates in her life. He couldn’t remember Greg’s name, but he knew the date her parents’ divorce had been finalized, the date her dad had died, her birthday.

He was the most reliable cat-sitter in her contacts.

Then there were the other things. He knew exactly how to touch her to make her go boneless after a long day. He knew how she liked to be kissed, had long ago mapped every single erogenous zone on her body. He knew when she didn't want to be touched; when she just wanted to sit with him in the quiet.

The fact that he hadn’t slept with anybody else for as long as they’d been “friends with benefits” was probably telling as well.

If all of this had been about any actual boyfriend she’d ever had, she wouldn’t have doubted his feelings for a moment. Expensive jewelry, time with his family, knowing odd facts about her, wanting her close. 

“Jesus,” she muttered to herself. Because if it had been anybody else, she would’ve _known_ without his saying it that he was in love with her. No question.

And, looked at baldly, he had to be. This was Sherlock; he was rubbish at interpersonal relationships.

“Oh, no,” she said. Because if he did love her, if the phone call hadn’t been about an experiment or making fun of her, something was very wrong.

Molly shot to her feet again, pacing frantically as she tried to call John and Sherlock. Again, they both went straight to voicemail. She went to the front closet and pulled out her on-call bag (travel toiletries and a change of clothes), grabbed Sherlock’s stash of cash (kept on hand in small bills to pay his homeless network when he had specific requests for them), put on her coat, and left the flat, scrolling through her contacts to find Mycroft.

She was only half surprised when it rang. When it was a woman’s voice that answered, she froze halfway down the stairs outside her building.

“Who is this?” Molly asked.

“I’m Mr. Holmes’s personal assistant,” the woman said.

“No, you’re not,” Molly said.

“Excuse me?” The woman was trying to sound professional and affronted, like Molly was the one in the wrong.

“This is Mycroft’s personal number. His assistant doesn’t answer this phone,” Molly said. “And you’re not Anthea.”

“What a clever one you are, Molly Hooper,” the woman said. “No wonder they like you.”

“Who is this?” Molly asked again. She couldn’t tell if the woman was mocking her.

She forced herself to get moving again. Between Sherlock and Mycroft, there was always somebody watching her flat. Sometimes it was somebody from Sherlock’s homeless network, sometimes it was some sort of government agent, sometimes it was CCTV. Looking around, she could see two cameras—one of them a traffic camera down at the corner, the other was the camera the neighbors across the street had put in as a security measure to monitor who was entering their building. Neither of them seemed likely to be tasked with keeping an eye out for her, so she looked for a lurker.

Down the street—in the opposite direction of the traffic camera, away from the main road—there was a silhouette in the alleyway. Tall and reedy, the glow of a cigarette.

She really, really hoped it was one of Sherlock’s network and not some random vagrant.

“My name is Eurus,” the woman said. “Where are you going, Molly Hooper?”

“You’re watching me?” Molly asked, trying not to sound as panicked as she felt. She looked around for more cameras but didn’t see any.

“Of course,” the woman, Eurus, said, then disconnected the call. Molly scowled at her mobile.

She’d almost made it to the man in the alleyway, but when she started to get close he dropped his cigarette and ground it under his heel.

“Hey!” Molly called. “You!”

“I was just watching, missus,” Bill Wiggins said, turning to face her but still moving away, taking small steps backwards as she continued to advance. “Keeping an eye out. You wouldn’t a seen me if you didn’t come lookin’.”

“Where’s Sherlock?” Molly asked him, ignoring his spluttering excuses.

“He’s clean and sober, missus,” Wiggins said. “Honest, ‘e hasn’t touched the stuff. Gave me his last pack ‘a cigs, too.”

“Wiggins,” she said, fishing a few bills out of Sherlock’s envelope and holding them out so he’d stop trying to get away from her. “I need you to find Sherlock. Or even just find out where he might be.”

“Sure, missus,” he said, stepping just close enough so that he could take the money. “I can do that.”

“Thank you,” she said. Then she winced, because she really didn’t want him to have her number, but he’d need a way to get in touch. “I can give you my number—”

“Already got it, missus. I’ll find ‘im and let you know toot sweet.”

Molly nodded, watching him disappear into the darkness. Her phone beeped; it was a text from Mycroft’s number: TALK MORE SOON.

“Fuck,” Molly muttered.

Half of her wanted to head back toward the main road, but if this Eurus person was watching her on CCTV rather than Mycroft it seemed like a bad idea. It was also a bad idea to hang out in a dark alleyway just past sunset, even in her quiet little neighborhood.

She needed more information. She called Greg.

“Lestrade,” he said, picking up on the second ring. He was probably on duty, hadn’t even looked at the caller ID before he answered.

Didn’t matter.

“Greg! Hi!” she said, barely containing a manic laugh. “I’m so glad you answered.”

“Hi, Molly. Yeah, of course I picked up. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Sherlock called me a bit ago, and it was… odd. Then he hung up, or the call dropped. I don’t know. But something’s not right,” she said, probably talking too fast. “I tried calling him back, but it went straight to voicemail. John’s too.”

“That is odd,” he said. He didn’t sound worried, though. Obviously she was doing a rubbish job at getting her panic across.

“When I called Mycroft, a woman picked up.”

“His assistant, yeah. She always answers.”

“No, Greg,” Molly said, more sharply than she meant to but not sharply enough that she was going to apologize to him. “I called his private line. His direct mobile. And it wasn’t Anthea that picked up, it was a woman who said her name is Eurus.”

“Never heard of her.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

“Are you okay, Molly?”

“I don’t know.” She bit her lip. There was still no particularly good direction to go—she was still loitering in the alley. “Was it a case you gave them? Do you know where they might be?”

“I haven’t had anything for them lately, no,” Greg said.

“Okay. Thanks anyway.”

“Do you want me to send somebody to pick you up?”

“Actually, could you just have somebody drive by my flat?”

“Yeah alright. I can do that.”

“Thank you,” she said, and disconnected.

She could stay out of sight, watch to see if the traffic camera followed the cruiser. If it didn’t, Mycroft’s people were probably still in control of it.

She really hoped it did. If it didn’t, if Mycroft’s people were still in control, that meant whoever this Eurus was had somehow bugged her flat.

Molly took a deep breath, settled in to wait for the cruiser, and called it in. Even if Sherlock wasn’t on some special assignment for Mycroft, they’d need to know that her flat had possibly been compromised. She didn’t have hardcopies of any classified information, but if somebody had been there she’d had _no idea_ and that was a problem.

She gave her codename, her passcode, made the report. She inquired after Mr. Bell, but was told that the agent wasn’t active. That was worrying, mostly because it meant that if Mycroft had brought him a case it was either personal or something off the books.

Molly glanced up and down the street. No sign of the cruiser yet. No sign of anybody at all. Not even some neighborhood cat out for a stroll.

Wiggins had vanished into the night too. She tried not to think about him. (It was probably another reason to think Sherlock loved her, though: Paying his drug dealer to act as lookout for her had to be a gesture of some sort.)

She’d never liked Bill Wiggins.

“Anthea!” Molly said, it only just then occurring to her that she had Mycroft’s business line saved in her mobile as well. And Anthea’s own number.

“Yes,” Annie said, picking up on the third ring. Molly almost burst into tears.

“Anthea! Hi! Don’t hang up!” Molly said.

“Okay…?”

“Right.” Molly took a deep breath, ordering herself to calm down and not to be cross with Anthea. “Do you know where your boss is? Or his brother?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re not going to tell me?”

“It’s above your clearance level, I’m afraid.” There was a sardonic smile in the woman’s voice.

“Fine. Don’t tell me. But can you check on them, please?”

“Molly—”

“Annie, does the name Eurus mean anything to you?”

“How do you know that name?” Anthea asked after a significant pause.

“Because when I called Mycroft just now, she was the one who answered.”

“Where are you right now?” Anthea asked, voice suddenly very intense.

“Down the street from my flat.”

“Go to the main road and head south.”

“What—”

“No, don’t speak. Go.”

“I don’t—”

“Molly, this is very important. Eurus Holmes is more dangerous than anybody you have ever met, and I say that knowing that you spent time with James Moriarty.”

Molly felt like her brain might be short-circuiting.

“Eurus _Holmes_?”

“Are you at the main road yet?” Anthea asked.

“No.”

“Molly, you need to get out of there.”

Molly had dozens of questions boiling around in her mind, but the urgency, the panic, in Anthea’s voice was enough to get her legs moving.

“You should be able to see the car,” Anthea said.

“Yes,” Molly said. It was one of the usual black government cars. It’s usually-hidden Official Vehicle lights were strobing.

“You should recognize the driver. His name is Jeff.”

“Missus,” Jeff said. He held out his ID badge so that she could confirm he was, indeed, Jeff.

Molly had broken out into a cold sweat. Eurus Holmes terrified Anthea. The unflappable PA who was certainly also an agent with just as much ability and training as James Bond or something. This woman scared Anthea to the point that she had Molly triple-confirming that she was being picked up by the right secret agent chauffeur named Jeff.

What in the world were Sherlock and John in the middle of?

“Are you in the car?” Anthea asked.

“Yes.”

“Good,” Anthea said. “I’m going to hang up now, and when I do I want you to power off your mobile and take out the battery. Can you do that?”

“Yes.”

Anthea hung up. Molly turned off her mobile, then took out the battery.

“All set, Missus?” Jeff asked.

“I think so,” Molly said.

He’d turned the flashing lights off. They took a circuitous route to wherever they were headed, and Molly realized that he was taking a route difficult to track on the traffic cameras.

They’d been on the road for maybe ten minutes when the car phone rang. (Molly hadn’t even known that was still a thing that cars had.) Jeff answered, then passed the handset back to her.

“Hello?”

“I need you to tell me everything you can remember about your call. Every word,” Anthea said.

Molly told her all of it. When she’d covered the short conversation she’d had with Eurus, she explained about the call from Sherlock that was the reason why she’d been trying to call Mycroft in the first place.

“Thank you,” Anthea said when Molly finished talking. Her voice was still intense, but her tone was more purposeful and less panicked. “Please hand the phone back to Jeff.”

Jeff and Anthea talked for a bit, Jeff speaking too quietly for Molly to listen to his part of the conversation. Molly looked out the window.

They ended up in a familiar bunker. Jeff drove into what looked like a normal underground parking garage, scanned his ID, drove down to the hidden lower levels. She’d performed autopsies in this place before. She’d always thought of it as the Churchill bunker, though as a facility it seemed too new and high-tech for it to have been used in his time. There was a framed photograph of Churchill in the entryway, though, and so she’d given it that name in her head.

Jeff led the way to a command center sort of room Molly had never been in before. One wall was covered in screens, displaying everything from weather reports to security footage. There were stations set up in rows facing the screen wall, enough computers for more than a dozen techs, but only three were currently occupied. Lady Smallwood was at the front of the room reading a report. It had the look of a room where everybody below a certain clearance level had been sent away in a hurry.

“Read that,” Lady Smallwood instructed, directing Molly to a thick file sitting on one of the empty desks. “I want you up to speed.”

Molly nodded and took a seat, shoving her on-call bag under the desk by her feet.

The file had all sorts of CLASSIFIED DO NOT DUPLICATE-type stamps on the cover. The tab on the side simply read JESSICA EURUS TIFFANY HOLMES.

The top page when she opened the folder was basic demographics, reason for institutionalization/incarceration, known aliases. There was a picture paperclipped to the page—a woman who looked a few years younger than Molly (according to the demographics, she was actually the same age, so the photo was just a few years old), same eyes as Sherlock and Mrs. Holmes, curly brown-black hair to her shoulders.

For some reason, she’d thought Eurus would be a cousin. There were so many Holmes cousins.

The file told a story that was more than a little bit horrible. A small, brilliant little girl who’d burned down her childhood home, was institutionalized, then burned down the institution. There were low quality scans of young Eurus’s disturbing drawings. There were photos—Eurus had been adorable, all serious doe eyes and pigtails, and as an adult she was beautiful in an eerie sort of way.

The notes in her file from early in life were all to do with Sherlock. He’d been her chosen victim again and again. After she’d been sent away, her attacks had been more random and more vicious.

And for years, apparently, Mycroft had been bringing her puzzles. The same way he did Sherlock, really. Only she was a psychopath, criminally insane, and even more adept at manipulating people than her brothers.

In return for solving his puzzles, Mycroft had brought her gifts. Most significantly, he’d brought her Moriarty.

“Anthea said you’d been in contact?” Lady Smallwood prompted. She’d glanced Molly’s way when she closed the file and set it aside, but her focus remained on the wall of screens.

“Roughly an hour ago, yes,” Molly said. “I called Mycroft’s personal line and she was the one that had answered.”

“And she didn’t give any hint what was going on?”

“No. Nothing.” Molly frowned. “She was watching me. Cameras in my flat, probably.”

“We’ll have that checked,” Lady Smallwood said. Her assistant—Cleo—started texting, presumably ordering people over to Molly’s flat to traumatize poor Toby.

“The team is arriving, mum,” one of the techs said.

“Put it on the main screen.”

The largest screen at the center of the wall went blue for a moment, then switched to what appeared to be body-cam footage. The soldier wearing the camera was with a dozen others, all of them moving quickly from a sandy beach area into a sort of concrete vestibule. There were hand gestures, coordinated movements.

A burst of gunfire startled everybody in the room. There were shouts from the men on screen, but not panicked or pained shouts. Within a moment, they’d returned fire and all was quiet.

There was no resistance after that.

More soldiers joined them—some in black, some in camouflage, all of them armed and wearing Kevlar—and the facility was swept. There was nobody in the administrative areas—one of the soldiers did something to a computer, and the techs in the command center began working on the system remotely.

“No, go back,” Molly said. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to speak, or if she was supposed to admit that she was looking over his shoulder at one of his screens, but the tech didn’t seem to realize what he’d just flicked past toggling through the facility’s security feeds.

“What is it?” the tech asked. He didn’t sound annoyed, at least.

“That was Mycroft Holmes.”


	21. compounded problems, pt 2

Mycroft was in a cell, pacing like a trapped animal. He’d taken off his coat and rolled up his sleeves, so he’d probably been there for a while. Molly had never seen him look so at a loss, including that awful Christmas when he’d had to admit to his parents that Sherlock had been arrested and there was nothing he could do about it.

Lady Smallwood began giving orders, voice clipped. A contingent of the soldiers inside the facility—Sherrinford, according to the file—broke off from the rest and made their way to where Mycroft was being held.

“Exterior team has recovered a body,” one of the other techs said. “Two bodies.”

“On screen,” Lady Smallwood said.

They were male, bound with signs around their necks. From the look of the wounds, they’d been dropped from a height. They were soaked, sandy.

“Spotted a third,” the tech said. “It’s out in the water. They’re working on retrieval now.”

“What is the status of Sherlock Holmes?” Mycroft asked, voice tight with panic. Molly turned her attention back to the main screen, where Mycroft had taken hold of the body-cam broadcasting, holding it so he was center frame and glaring.

“Bring him here and debrief him on the way,” Lady Smallwood said, ignoring Mycroft’s demands in favor of the larger operation. “Sedate him if you have to.”

The next hour was oddly quiet. MI-5 swept through Sherrinford, detaining staff and inmates alike. Three prisoners and not quite half the staff were missing—impossible to say, so soon, if they were elsewhere or dead. Eurus was one of the missing prisoners.

Bodies kept turning up. The three on the beach. The prison governor in a cell (at least they thought it was him; the body resembled him and the ID in his pocket declared it was him, but he’d died by gunshot to the head and it was difficult to distinguish his features). A woman on a terrace outside the governor’s office, also shot.

Molly was sitting next to the tech when he started rolling back security footage. The first sign of Sherlock and John was at the main dock, their limp forms being carried onto a boat by bulky orderlies all in white. Eurus was there, too, following after them watchfully, smiling up at each security camera she passed like she knew somebody would be reviewing the footage.

“Creepy one, isn’t she?” the tech muttered to himself. Molly agreed, but she didn’t say so.

Eurus looked a lot like her mother from a distance. She _moved_ like Mrs. Holmes, that fact made creepier because she hadn’t seen her mother in probably thirty years as far as Molly knew.

“I have ID information on a boat out of Sherrinford,” the tech said, sending the information off to one of the other techs to track while he kept rolling back the footage.

“Initial report from your flat, Missus,” Cleo said, drawing Molly’s attention away from the security footage. “They’ve found audio and visual recording devices. No explosives, but they’re still sweeping.”

“Mrs. Hudson owns the flat next door,” Molly said, the thought just occurring to her. “She owns Sherlock’s flat, too. It should probably be checked, if Eurus might know there’s a connection. The one next to me is vacant at the moment.”

Cleo glanced at Lady Smallwood then nodded, texting.

“Have Mrs. Hudson and the Watson girl brought here,” Lady Smallwood said.

Molly looked back at the screen displaying the footage from Sherrinford as the tech scrolled through. She wished she could put the battery back in her phone to text Mrs. Hudson, check she was alright.

On screen, Sherlock had a gun pointed at Mycroft. Then he put it under his own chin.

“Is there audio?” Molly asked, half hoping the answer was ‘no.’

“There is,” the tech said, clicking.

Eurus shouted at Sherlock, then all three of the men dropped. Orderlies rushed in, secured the weapon, dragged the three of them out. The tech toggled cameras so they could watch John and Sherlock taken out of the facility, off to the boat as they’d watched earlier. Mycroft had been brought directly into the cell where he’d been found.

“The floorplan has been changed,” one of the other techs said.

On the wall of screens, blueprints and schematics Molly could only vaguely sort of understand popped up. It seemed to mean something to Lady Smallwood and the others. The tech next to Molly had to point to the sections of interest, showing her where doors had been added to interlink cells and conference rooms.

By the time Mycroft returned to London, a vague picture of what had happened at Sherrinford had unfolded. Eurus had lured them into a trap, run them all through a series of tests, experiments, observational studies.

It had begun with Sherlock, John and Mycroft locked in the room where the governor’s body had been found. Eurus had communicated via a video screen mounted to one of the walls. Another video screen had sporadically played recorded clips of Jim Moriarty.

For a moment, it had looked like John would shoot the governor. Then the governor took the gun and shot himself.

They’d moved to another room. There was an old gun, the three men looking at something out a window. It sounded, from the audio, as though Eurus was using a little girl held hostage as motivator for their compliance. A girl on a plane somewhere. (Lady Smallwood had set people in motion investigating the rogue aircraft.)

Next was a room with a coffin open on a table, the lid stood against the wall.

“So, Sherlock. Who loves you?”

“Oh, no,” Molly whispered, realizing what was coming. What the circumstances behind the call had been.

The tech glanced at her, but didn’t stop the playback.

Her side of the call had been piped through over the speakers, all of them hearing it. Sherlock, John, Mycroft, Eurus. The way the three men faced the same way, faced the same camera, made her think there was a second video screen the security camera couldn’t see, that they’d been able to see footage from her flat while Sherlock talked to her.

It was almost harder to watch than it had been to experience. Sherlock looked so desperate. So raw.

And then he destroyed the coffin with his bare hands. The way he’d yelled, screamed, cut her to the bone. She was glad that she was already sitting down.

She’d started crying, weeping, at some point, but she didn’t remember when.

The next room was the last, the one they’d seen the end of already when Eurus tranquilized them and sent in orderlies to collect them. It was almost as hard to watch the setup as it had been to watch Sherlock’s fist smash into the coffin—Eurus told Sherlock to choose between John and Mycroft, and Mycroft tried to make the choice easier for him, because of course he did. He was rubbish at being a big brother except for when it really counted.

Mycroft strode into the command center, Anthea at his side. His body language spoke to barely contained tension, but his face was completely blank. Molly wanted to hug him, but it wasn’t the time or the place for it.

“Where did she take them?” Mycroft asked, noting the others in the room but keeping his focus on Lady Smallwood.

“You should be with the medics,” Lady Smallwood said, but gestured to the screens. “We’re still tracking. They left the island in a boat, but it hasn’t docked anywhere with a registry.”

“They could be anywhere along the coast by now,” Mycroft said.

“They’ve called for help!” one of the techs said, clicking a few things and putting new information on the wall of screens. A satellite map of England that quickly zoomed in. The picture was blurry, dark and green, then the tech did something and a street map overlayed the satellite image.

“The Yard is responding,” Lady Smallwood said. She’d picked up a tablet at some point, accessing more information. “Mr. Bell contacted DI Lestrade. Lestrade has alerted local authorities. Our people are mobilizing now.”

“I should—” Mycroft said, but Lady Smallwood cut him off with a hand on his arm, squeezing once briefly before letting him go.

“Not this time,” she said. Mycroft scowled at her, drew himself up, but held his tongue.

“Anthea?” Mycroft said, and his assistant nodded, pocketed her mobile, left the room. Mycroft looked at Lady Smallwood like he was waiting for her to protest, but she didn’t.

“You should be checked out. They’ll need to know what she used to sedate you,” Lady Smallwood said.

“Fine,” Mycroft said, gesturing to Molly. Molly glanced at Lady Smallwood for permission first, then followed Mycroft from the room.

“Are you alright?” she asked him once they were closed in the lab she’d used before. It was a sterile, unwelcoming sort of room, but it had everything she needed and a relatively comfortable place for Mycroft to sit.

“That’s what you’re supposed to determine,” Mycroft said, not looking at her.

“That’s not what I meant,” Molly said. He didn’t answer as she collected her samples. When the machines were whirring and she had nothing to do but wait for results, she leaned her hip against the counter and spoke again, “He was able to call Lestrade. That’s a good sign.”

“Did Sherlock call Lestrade? Or John Watson?” Mycroft asked, finally meeting her eyes. He looked so, so tired. “Why wouldn’t Sherlock call it in properly?”

“If he didn’t have his own mobile—and we know he didn’t, because MI-5 recovered it from Sherrinford—maybe he just called the first number he remembered.”

Mycroft scowled, but didn’t contradict her.

The machine pinged. Molly left him be while she worked, slipping back into the peaceful routine of science, of lab work, of solid results and answers. She forwarded it all to Lady Smallwood—a fairly standard sedative in a low dose. The others must’ve been given more after the orderlies had collected them to have still been out when they made it to the boat.

“So you have a sister,” Molly said, not looking at him, going through the usual steps to put the lab equipment back to bed.

“She’s a year younger than Sherlock,” Mycroft said after a very long pause. So long a pause she’d thought he wasn’t going to respond. “She killed a boy called Victor Trevor when she was six. We could never prove it—I don’t think our parents would let themselves believe it. He disappeared. Sherlock looked everywhere, the police looked, the community. No trace of him. His body was never recovered.”

“Oh,” Molly said, sitting on a stool and facing him. She didn’t know what to say, but it seemed like he needed to get the words out. He stared at his folded hands as he spoke.

“He was Sherlock’s friend since they were small. Inseparable. They used to play pirates together.”

“Redbeard,” Molly said. She’d heard Sherlock say it often enough, usually in his sleep. “Or was that the dog?”

“We never had a dog,” Mycroft said. He looked at her with wet, tired eyes. “Our father is quite allergic.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You know Sherlock ‘deletes’ things occasionally, rearranges his mind palace,” Mycroft said. He looked away, avoiding her eye. “Early on, I… I encouraged him to make certain alterations. For his own sanity.”

“He deleted his friend?”

“It was easier to believe that Eurus had killed the family dog.”

“Oh, God.”

“Eurus was always fixated on Sherlock. Used to leave such bruises on him, then tell Mummy that she’d been tickling. Just playing. She enjoyed playing doctor, but to be the doctor there had to be a patient. And she liked things to be as authentic as she could make them.” He looked strangely young and vulnerable as he spoke. “Shortly after the Trevor boy went missing, Eurus burned down the family house. She said she was only trying to kill Sherlock, not hurt the rest of us.”

“Oh, God,” Molly repeated. Mycroft didn’t seem to be listening to her, though.

“She was sent away. Sherlock began to suppress the memories of her. We let him. _I_ encouraged him.”

“You’re afraid of her.”

“Oh, absolutely.”

Molly blinked away tears. Again.

“Will you… help him?” Mycroft asked after a long moment. He’d given her time to compose herself. “He’s going to need you. I don’t know how to help him. With this.”

“Mycroft,” she said, then stopped and thought, trying to find the right words. She started again: “Mycroft, do you remember the day we met? No, I know you remember. I just mean, I’m wondering if you remember that it was the day we met.”

“Dr. Jennings was doing a final evaluation of your recruitment. Sherlock had been drugged while undercover.”

“Yes,” Molly said. She shouldn’t have been surprised at his recall. “Sherlock was out of it, but he heard your voice talking to Dr. Jennings. He called for you, and you touched him. Just touched his head. A simple thing. But his blood pressure stabilized when you did it.”

Mycroft gave her a look, and she gave him one right back.

“Don’t,” she said. “I was in the room.”

“I think this will take a bit more than—”

“Oh, you great lump. You’re as bad as he is,” Molly said. It would’ve been amusing if it all hadn’t been such a _mess_. She got off her stool and walked over to him, hugged him. “It will be okay, Mycroft.”

He took a shuddery sort of breath, then hugged her back. (Briefly. Awkwardly.)

“Do you have any injuries I should look at before we go back?” Molly asked when she drew away. He didn’t appear to be injured, but Sherlock was good as hiding things too.

“No. She didn’t want to hurt me. Much.” Mycroft sighed and stood. He put his suit coat back on without rolling his sleeves down first. “As when we were children, she was really only interested in Sherlock.”

Molly nodded and followed him out of the room. They walked back to the command center in silence. The room was mostly empty, though, and one of the remaining techs told them John and Sherlock and Eurus were being transported back to London for debriefing.

“They’re alright?” Mycroft asked. “Sherlock Holmes is alright?”

“Initial report says so. Yes, sir,” the tech said. “There’s an order for them both to have a full workup once they’re here, but they’re conscious and moving under their own power.”

“ETA?” Mycroft asked.

Molly retrieved her on-call bag, only half listening as Mycroft grilled the tech about travel routes and security. She shouldered the bag and went to wait by the door to find out where they’d go next.

Mycroft finally nodded decisively, then turned on his heel and led the way out. He’d recovered himself significantly, and he seemed annoyed that he wasn’t the one in charge of the operation.

“Bunks,” Mycroft said, pointing to a door down the hall. “We have just over an hour.”

“Right.”

Molly could hear Rosie fussing before she even opened the door. From the way Mycroft stiffened, she could tell he heard it to—she grabbed him to keep him from disappearing into an office somewhere for a nap; if she let him out of her sight, she wasn’t so sure he’d remember to bring her along when John and Sherlock arrived.

“Molly, I really don’t—” Mycroft said, but it was too late.

The room was long and narrow. Two sets of bunk beds on either side of the room with just a narrow space to walk between. Lockers attached to the wall near the door. The wall at the back of the room was the sort that created privacy at the entrance to a public restroom, not really a doorway while still being a doorway.

Rosie looked up at them, startled to see new people, but then she recognized Molly and a huge gummy grin split her face. She’d been clinging to an exhausted-looking Mrs. Hudson, but squirmed to be put down.

“Ma!” Rosie said. They’d all decided to assume it was the first syllable of ‘Molly’ rather than ‘Mama.’

“Hi, Rosie,” Molly said. It was all she could do not to cry. “How is my sweetest girl?”

Rosie launched into the story of her crazy day. Most of it was real words in near-sentence order, too, which was impressive. Mrs. Hudson almost drowned the little girl out, though, when she began haranguing Mycroft. Mycroft, for his part, ignored them both; he collected a generic-looking bit of kit from the lockers on the wall by the door and walked through to the other end of the room, where Molly assumed there were showers or something.

“Please, Mrs. H,” Molly said, putting her hand on the older woman’s shoulder to keep her from following Mycroft. “He’s had an even worse night than we have.”

“ _Worse_ ,” Mrs. Hudson parroted back, unbelieving. “Do you know, since you called earlier, I’ve learned that the flat I own next to yours was absolutely loaded with explosives?”

“It was?”

“Yes! Military grade, like the grenade that _his_ associate set off at Baker Street!”

Rosie, either because Molly hadn’t been listening to her or because Mrs. Hudson sounded so upset, began to cry.

“Shh, Rosie. I’m sorry. It’s been a really long day, hasn’t it?”

“Want Dad!” Rosie said between hiccupping sobs. “Want Dad! Want Dad!”

“He’s on his way, sweetie. He’ll be here soon as he can, okay?” Molly said as soothingly as she could. At least she could say that much truthfully. It was so much better than those long days with her after Mary had died, when Rosie knew something was wrong and missed her mum and didn’t know what was going on. And so much worse, because life had already taught this poor little girl that sometimes parents don’t come home.

“Want Dad,” Rosie said again, but quieter, letting Molly hold her close and rock her.

“Poor dove,” Mrs. Hudson said, stroking Rosie’s hair gently. “John’s really on his way?”

“Yes. Mycroft just got word,” Molly said. “They’re about an hour out of London.”

Mrs. Hudson looked like she was about to ask what was going on, but Mycroft reentered the room. He’d showered, changed into that standard MI-5-issue black shirt and trousers, and Molly wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him look so dressed down. The black washed him out, too, so his exhaustion was even more apparent.

Without speaking to them, Mycroft tossed his suit onto one of the upper bunks and lay down on the lower bunk, turning on his side so he faced away.

“If you don’t mind, Mrs. Hudson, I’d really like to try to get a nap before they get here as well,” Molly said. Mrs. Hudson gave her a pitying sort of look that Molly took to mean she looked just as bad as Mycroft. “What do you think, Rosie? Would it be okay if we lay down for a bit until your dad gets here?”

Rosie nodded, a grumpy-tired sort of acquiescence. Molly didn’t bother to take off her shoes, just got comfortable on the lower bunk between Mycroft’s bunk and the door—she still wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t try to ditch her.

She didn’t sleep at all. She lay there, holding the warm sleepy weight of Rosie close to her, listening to Mycroft’s gentle snores. Mrs. Hudson had paced a bit, or tried to, before laying down as well; Molly couldn’t tell if she was asleep.

Molly turned the events of the last few hours over and over in her mind.

Sherlock had a secret sister. She was a psychopath fixated on him. The people she loved best had come out of it all alive.

She was pregnant.

Mycroft’s mobile trilled and he jerked awake, rolled out of bed. Molly slid out of her bunk as well, humming softly to Rosie when she began to stir a bit.

“You can’t mean to bring her along?” Mycroft hissed when he realized Molly hadn’t left Rosie in the bunk.

“The very first thing John is going to want to do is hold his daughter,” Molly said. It seemed like the thought hadn’t occurred to him, but it made sense to him once she’d pointed it out. He didn’t protest further.

_You better get a little more used to the idea of children, Uncle Myc_ , she thought to herself. She was too tired to even smile at the internal bit of humor.

Mrs. Hudson was soundly asleep, and Molly had a feeling that if she suggested they wake her Mycroft would just say that she didn’t have security clearance to leave the room.

He led the way through the labyrinthine hallways. She only had the vaguest idea of the layout, and she was too tired to work on her mental map of the place while she followed him.

“Status?” Mycroft asked when they entered the command center. He wasn’t particularly quiet, but Rosie was sound asleep.

“Just arrived,” Cleo, Lady Smallwood’s assistant, said. She shot Molly and the baby a look but didn’t say anything.

Molly watched the wall of screens. Her knees went a bit weak when she saw John and Sherlock getting out of a police van—John had a blanket around his shoulders and they both were visibly filthy even from the poor angle of the security camera, but they both looked _alright_. Mycroft sagged a bit next to her, and if she hadn’t been holding Rosie she would’ve squeezed his shoulder or something.

“They were questioned on the ride back,” Cleo said. “We’ll need to follow up after they’ve had some rest, but the full debriefing can wait for now.”

“And Sherrinford? Eurus?”

“Sherrinford is under control, or as close to it as we can tell. That investigation is ongoing. Eurus Holmes is in London until Sherrinford is ready for her return. Lady Smallwood thought it best she was brought to a different facility than this one.” Cleo looked down at her mobile, then continued, “Musgrave appears to be secure as well.”

“Musgrave?” Mycroft asked, notably surprised.

“What’s Musgrave?” Molly asked.

“The family pile,” Mycroft said, still looking to Cleo for answers.

“It was where she’d taken your brother and Dr. Watson, sir,” Cleo said.

“That’s a surprise,” Mycroft said.

Before Molly could formulate another question, he was holding the door open for her. She left the room, then followed him to a bank of elevators.

“I don’t know how to make this…better,” Mycroft said when they were inside the elevator. It sounded like she’d extracted the words from him under torture.

“What?”

“I kept this from him. Kept her a secret, locked away.” He looked at her, then looked away. “His not knowing didn’t save him from any of the—pain—of it, in the end.”

“It’s not the end yet, Mycroft,” she said.

He looked at her like she was insane, but then the elevator door dinged and opened, and his façade was firmly back in place.

“They’re cleaning up,” Anthea said, intercepting them in the hall and bringing them to a conference room. “EMTs checked them over at the scene, too. All clear.”

“Good,” Mycroft said. “Good.”

“Your flat had been cleared,” Anthea continued, turning to Molly. “Cameras in every room, but no explosives.”

“Oh good,” Molly said without any particular enthusiasm. Eurus Holmes had watched her pee. That was a completely normal and okay thing to have happened.

“The flat next door—owned by the same Mrs. Hudson that owns Sherlock’s place on Baker Street—was rigged with enough C4 to collapse both sides of the townhome. They’re still looking into it, but the suspicion is that the cleaning crew brought in after her last tenants moved out did more than clean.”

“She does have a history with repairmen,” Molly said, not quite hysterically. Mycroft gave her a look that so closely matched Sherlock’s ‘don’t tell jokes Molly’ look that she had to bite her lip to keep the laugh in.

Anthea fetched a garment bag with a fresh suit for Mycroft from behind the door, and he disappeared off somewhere to change. Molly sat down at the table with Rosie, petting the sleeping girl’s hair.

“Thank you for calling it in,” Anthea said, sitting across from her. “They’d only just be getting started on Sherrinford if you hadn’t tipped us off.”

Molly nodded. She couldn’t think what so say.

Mycroft returned a moment later, adjusting his tie. He looked as he always did, if a bit pale. It made Molly feel even more tired.

“What time is it?” Molly asked, realizing she didn’t even know that. She hadn’t worn a watch in years, and her mobile was still battery-less in the outside pocket of her on-call bag.

“Almost five,” Anthea said.

“No wonder I’m tired,” Molly said, adjusting Rosie on her lap.

They all heard Sherlock and John in the hall. Anthea stood and opened the door, directing them inside before she saw herself out to give them all a moment.

For a second, nobody seemed to know where to start. Then John made a strangled noise at the back of his throat and made a beeline for his daughter.

Molly stood up and handed her over, then looked to Sherlock. She’d expected to see him smiling at the reunion between father and daughter, but he’d frozen just inside the door. _Staring_ at her.

“I’m sorry,” he said, almost choking on the words. “I’m so sorry, Molly.”

“It’s not your fault,” Molly said quietly, really wishing they didn’t have an audience for this part. Even if the audience was Mycroft and John.

“We weren’t ready,” Sherlock said. He was staring at her, staring into her eyes, hardly seeming to notice the others.

“What are you talking about?”

“I love you, Molly,” he said. She thought her heart might’ve stopped beating, but he didn’t seem to notice her shock. “It wasn’t the right time to say it; we’ve been playing catchup since Mary died, but—”

“I know,” she said, waving a hand like that would somehow dispel the tension before he could jump off the monstrous stack of baggage they’d accumulated between them.

“You… know?”

“I know. I love you. I understand,” she said. Her fingers clenched together in front of her, wanting to fuss with her jumper or pick at her nailbeds. “I’ve always understood. At least a bit. It took me a while to put it together.”

“I don’t…” He blinked. “What?”

“You pay attention to me. You know how I take my coffee, know when I need cheering up. You want me around even when you’re feeling miserable and misanthropic.” She wanted to kiss him, but he looked so confused already she didn’t want to add to the data he had to process. And they had that audience that she was carefully not looking at. “And you like my jokes.”

“I do _not_ ,” he said. “You’re horrible at jokes, Molly. You shouldn’t tell jokes.”

“You’re very good at hiding it, Sherlock Holmes, but I know you love me,” she said, ignoring his comment about her jokes. “That’s why it hurt so much when I thought you were making fun of me.”

“I wasn’t. I wouldn’t.” He grabbed her, clutched her close, as if holding her tight was the way to make her believe him. She couldn’t help but smile, even if he wouldn’t see it with her face pressed to his chest.

“I caught on to that eventually,” she said.

“So we’re not—this isn’t—” He pulled back so that he could look at her, and scowled, frustrated with himself when he couldn’t find the words he was looking for. “You’re not going to… leave?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “You?”

“No.” He looked a little confused that she would even ask him.

“Alright, then.” She leaned forward and went up on her toes a bit to kiss him on the lips—a chaste, familiar kiss. “We can take as much time as we want to sort out what, exactly, we’re—”

He cut her off with a kiss. _Not_ the chaste, familiar little kiss she’d given him. It was all teeth and tongue, his fingers digging into her waist as he pulled her flush against him.

John cleared his throat.

Molly’s face burned with a blush. She stepped back from Sherlock, smiling a bit when she noticed he was blushing, too. He cleared his throat, eyes darting around the room, not sure where to look or what to say.

“Um,” John said. He was blinking too much, looking at them like he was expecting one of them to start laughing.

“You were right when you said she was out there and she was alive,” Sherlock said, alluding to some conversation Molly hadn’t been a part of, judging by the look on John’s face. “Just not about which ‘she.’”

“So you—the two of you—?” He had that tense smile on his face, the one that wasn’t quite a happy smile. The one that meant he was about to shout at Sherlock for being a dick. 

“Yes,” Sherlock said. Molly could tell that he’d seen the same signs she had, and he didn’t seem to know how to diffuse the situation.

“You and Molly.”

“Yes.”

“What about the Woman? Irene Adler?”

“God. The _hell_ with the Woman, John,” Sherlock said, throwing his hands up. He looked like he wanted to stalk away, to pace, but there wasn’t really a good space for it. “She prefers to sleep with women. I prefer to sleep with Molly. It was never a _thing_.”

“You prefer to—” John blinked, gritted his teeth, and turned to Molly. “He still texts her.”

“Deleted the number years ago,” Sherlock said, scowling.

“He sporadically resets my text alert to—that—text alert sound,” Molly said. She didn’t want to bring up that he tended to do it when he was high, because that wouldn’t win him any points with John at the moment.

“There was never anything between the Woman and I, John. Maybe a flirtation. And it was useful that she owed me a favor,” Sherlock said coldly, then his eye flicked over to Molly and his tone warmed significantly. “And there hasn’t been anybody but Molly for a very long time.”

“What does _that_ mean?” John asked.

“Well, we’ve been sleeping together on and off for years,” Sherlock said. Offhand. “I was _going_ to propose when I returned from abroad, but things kept coming up.”

“You were _what_?” Molly spluttered, but Sherlock ignored her in favor of continuing his bickering with John.

“You—you two have been—What do you mean on and off for years?” John spluttered.

“Friends with benefits, John. I’m sure you’ve heard of it before.”

“But you—” John scrubbed a hand over his face, then smoothed Rosie’s hair a bit. “Not your area, you said. Repeatedly. Vehemently.”

“Well I was quite in love with Molly, of course. And a bit in denial.” Sherlock shrugged. “Why would I go looking for somebody else to take to bed when I could go sleep with the woman I love?”

“But. Tom? And _Janine—_ ”

“It was for a case. Old news, John. Literally.” Sherlock smirked. “I was an arse. She bought a cottage. Water under the bridge.”

“Tom was never my boyfriend,” Molly said, deciding to leave the proposal bombshell for a later, more private, moment. “He was my security detail—people who’d helped Sherlock when he was supposed to be dead were turning up murdered.”

“Jesus,” John said.

“Really,” Sherlock said, rolling his eyes. He’d started out amused at John’s reaction, but he’d clearly had enough of it. “Can we skip to the part where you’re happy for us?”

“You don’t sound happy,” John shot back.

“Well I’m also very tired,” Sherlock said, real anger in his voice. “And not so many hours ago, my sister was trying to kill us all. Still some questions due to be answered there, _brother mine_.”

Mycroft, who had been keeping back from the conversation with an amused sort of tolerance, nodded.

“And a few new questions about one Irene Adler, it seems.”

Sherlock tsked.

Rosie had picked up on the tension in the room, fussing a little in her sleep without waking up. Everybody was quiet while John put a hand on her back and hummed to her for a moment until she settled.

“Huh,” John said once Rosie was quiet, looking at them thoughtfully.

“That’s it?” Sherlock asked. “’ _Huh_ ’?”

“Well. Now I’m just wondering how I missed it for so long,” John said.

“We were in the habit of trying to keep Mycroft from noticing,” Molly said, wrinkling her nose and shooting a look at Mycroft. He just rolled his eyes.

“What do you mean you were in the habit? You mean this all started before I even met you?”

“Yes, John,” Sherlock said, nodding slowly like he did when he was trying to encourage Rosie to eat something. “Like I said. On and off for years.”

“But that’s almost ten years!” he said in a sort of shout-whisper to keep from rousing Rosie.

“Correct.” Sherlock smiled beatifically. John looked like he was rearranging the way the world worked in his brain.

“Okay,” John said. “Okay. It’s going to take me some time to get used to the idea, but okay. You two—I mean—this is really great.”

“Thank you, John,” Molly said, smiling, then smiling wider because she could practically see Sherlock unclench with relief. She hadn’t noticed until he’d relaxed, but she was fairly sure he’d been waiting for John to hand her Rosie so that he could throw a punch.

“Leave it to the pair of you to decide bomb threats are a good reason to make things official,” John said, chuckling to himself, kissing the side of Rosie’s head.

“What are _you_ looking so smug about?” Sherlock asked. Molly looked over and Mycroft was, indeed, looking weirdly pleased.

“It’s just occurred to me that you’re going to have to tell Mummy.”

“Yes, well, _you’ve_ got some explaining to do about our sister,” Sherlock said. “So I’m sure it balances.”


	22. the day after

Mycroft disappeared off to manage things, or possibly just to return to his own home for another nap. (He and Sherlock clearly needed a bit of time apart from one another.) The rest of them returned to the bunk room on the lower level.

Mrs. Hudson was right where she’d been, soundly asleep. John took one bunk with Rosie held against him, and Molly only hesitated a moment before crawling into the same bunk as Sherlock. He pulled her close against him, tucking her under his chin the way they always fit together, and Molly was sure she was crying again.

At some point, she’d fallen asleep. She hadn’t really expected to be able to, but Sherlock had held her tight and stroked his hand up and down her back and the world had gradually faded away. She woke to his embrace loose around her, his body warm and soundly asleep beneath hers.

Molly waited for a few long minutes, hoping she’d fall asleep again, but there was nothing for it. And she had to pee.

She extricated herself from his arms, picked up the on-call bag still sitting half under the bunk, and went into the bathroom at the end of the room. It was a very utilitarian sort of room—a shelving unit by the door with soap and towels, four shower stalls separated by half-walls, a toilet stall, a urinal, and two sinks.

Molly showered quickly. (The water was _freezing_ to begin with and didn’t get any better no matter how long she let it run.) Her hair was drippy and cold, but she felt marginally more human when she was finished. Even better when she used the sink to brush her teeth.

The others were awake when she returned to the bunk room, blotting at her hair with the towel. She’d changed into the clothes from her on-call bag and she wanted to drip on the fresh jumper as little as possible.

“Ma!” Rosie announced happily, the first to see her. She seemed quite chipper for the night she’d had, but she also had all of her favorite people in one room so it was probably a very good morning in her opinion.

“Good morning, Rosie,” Molly said. “Morning all.”

“Morning,” Mrs. H said. She looked a little worse for wear from the rough night, but mostly well.

“There’s bagels and coffee, if you’d like breakfast,” Sherlock said. He looked like he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do—play the boyfriend and kiss her hello, or act the way he always had and focus on the mobile in his hand. “Cleo brought it in.”

“That was nice of her,” Molly said. She helped herself to a bagel. She wanted coffee, but she should be avoiding caffeine.

John looked back and forth between them like he was waiting for something. Molly had no idea what, so she did her best to ignore him; she’d put the battery back in her mobile before she’d gone to shower, so she picked it up off the bunk to see if she’d missed anything while it was powered down.

There were no texts or calls (because it had been powered down), but she had several emails with updates from Lady Smallwood and Anthea, voicemails from Greg and Ellie. Sherlock’s Aunt Cecily had emailed wanting to know if she wanted to meet for lunch sometime later in the month.

Altogether, not much interesting.

Molly ate her bagel and sent off an email to St. Bart’s requesting a week’s personal time.

“Okay, seriously, are you not going to—?” John asked, still looking between them like he was waiting for something.

Molly, bagel halfway to her mouth for another bite, froze and looked at John, looked at Sherlock, looked back at John.

“Going to _what_?” she asked.

“He’s waiting for you to kiss me good morning,” Sherlock said, not looking up from his mobile.

“We don’t really do that,” Molly said, feeling wrong-footed. “Is that a thing we’re supposed to do now?”

Sherlock shrugged, still not looking up.

“What on earth…?” Mrs. Hudson said, setting aside her cup of coffee to give John a look.

“They’re together. Apparently,” John said, turning to Mrs. Hudson but pointing back and forth between Molly and Sherlock. “Have been for almost ten years. Apparently.”

“Stop repeating ‘apparently,’” Sherlock chided.

“I keep repeating it because it’s _not_ ,” John said.

Sherlock sighed and finally looked up from his mobile. He fixed John with a look, then turned his eyes to Molly. Molly had gotten tired of holding the bagel in front of her face without eating it, and took an enormous bite. Sherlock smiled at her and went back to his texting.

* * *

Sherlock and John were required for more debriefings and Mrs. Hudson had meetings set up with various contractors (these ones vetted by MI-5), so Molly took Rosie back to her place. It was a complete tip. The bomb squad had been very thorough.

Shelves had been emptied onto the floor. Her kitchen cupboards. Her fridge. Everything was everywhere. It looked like they’d even shifted the appliances to have a look behind them.

Toby sat in the hall next to her bedroom door, tail twitching. He darted into the darkness of the bedroom once he’d made eye contact with her, communicating his unhappiness.

“Well,” Molly said after she’d walked through the place, keeping Rosie securely on her hip, “I guess I know what we’re going to be doing today.”

If she hadn’t been so relieved that it meant there were no bombs or surveillance equipment left behind, she would’ve been furious about the mess.

She spent the afternoon tidying up, putting everything back in order. Rosie kept her company, babbling at her from a toddler-friendly spot in the living room. They ran out to the shops to replace what had been in the fridge, and picked up a few extra things as well—John and Sherlock would need to eat at some point.

She had got a baguette from the shop she liked, and once she had Rosie down for a nap she chopped up some vegetables and set to assembling her great aunt’s Sunday roast. She’d bought a little chocolate cake, too.

The flat was more-or-less back to normal when Sherlock walked in. He stopped in the foyer and looked around, smirking a bit.

“What?” she asked him, crossing her arms not quite defensively over her middle.

“You got things cleaned up rather quickly,” he said, shrugging. He toed off his shoes and hung the suit jacket where he normally hung his coat. (She’d dropped his coat off at the dry cleaner’s earlier, and who knew the state of his spare coat since it had been in a closet at Baker Street when the grenade had gone off.) “And it smells wonderful in here.”

“I wanted comfort food,” she said.

“Can’t blame you for that.”

“Sherlock—” she started, figuring eating-for-two might be her best opening to tell him about the pregnancy yet, but he silenced her with a kiss.

“John will be here any minute,” he murmured against her lips. She hummed, brain derailing when he pulled her against his body.

She let him snog her for a long moment before fighting her way back to some semblance of rational thought.

“There’s something I need to tell you before John gets here, then,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows, still holding her close. She had to force herself to take half a step back so that warmth of his body didn’t distract her so much.

“Sherlock. I’m—it’s just—Well, I was very cross with you. You’d jumped back into the drugs and I was sure you were going to kill yourself or get yourself killed. No, don’t apologize again, let me finish. I was angry, and you’re the only one I’ve slept with in _ages_ , and it doesn’t make sense in retrospect, but I didn’t refill my prescription for birth control because I wasn’t planning to have sex with you because I was so angry at you. But then things got better, and I didn’t even think of it—because I’m a _moron_ —and what I’m trying to _say_ is that I’m pregnant. Again. And it’s yours. And it was an accident. And I’m sorry. But I’m not sorry, because I’m sort of looking forward to it.” She glanced up at him and bit her lip, trying and failing to read his expression. “But I really don’t want you to think that I’m trying to entrap you or something, especially not because of everything you’ve just—we’ve just—been through. And, honestly, if it’s too much or you don’t want to take on that role, that’s fine, I can do it myself. I just really thought that you should know that… Yeah. I’m pregnant.”

Sherlock stood there staring at her, completely still.

Molly stepped back a little so that she could take both his hands in hers when a moment had passed and he barely even seemed to be breathing. She tried not to cry.

“Sherlock?”

He blinked and turned his hands in hers so that he could squeeze hers gently. Then he smiled, broad and beautiful.

“Really?”

“What?”

“You’re pregnant. _We’re_ pregnant—isn’t that what people say? Makes no sense. But. You’re pregnant. And it’s mine. And we’re doing—pregnancy—together. And having a baby?”

Molly nodded and smiled and tried not to cry, only it was happier tears she was holding off this time. Sherlock made a happy sob sort of noise and wiped a few of his own tears away. That set her off.

“Ah, God,” she said, trying to pull herself together. Sherlock hugged her tight, and it was wonderful. “I’m such a mess.”

“You are _wonderful_ ,” Sherlock said. His tone was so earnest and lovely that it had tears welling in the edges of her eyes again.

“I have to stop _crying_ ,” she told him. “John will be here any moment.”

“John! Can I tell John? Can we tell John?” he asked, following her to the bathroom. She splashed cool water on her face and ran her fingers through her hair, trying to get herself back to looking presentable.

“Of course we’ll tell John,” Molly said. She fished a ponytail holder out of her pocket and pulled her hair back.

“I can’t wait to see the look on his face,” Sherlock said, dipping down to kiss her, then practically skipping out of the bathroom.

“Sherlock—” she started, following him out, but he’d turned around and ducked back into the bathroom to wash his own face.

“Yes?” he asked, face hidden behind a towel.

“Can we just tell John for now? Not Mrs. Hudson or Greg or anybody just yet?”

He put the towel away, giving her a look.

“It’s just. I—well. I lost the last one,” she said, her voice small. She’d gotten very good at putting that to the back of her mind. It snuck on her at random times, though. Especially now.

“Of course we can wait, Molly,” he said softly. “We can wait to tell John, too, if you’d like.”

“No. I don’t want to wait. John should know,” she said. John was her best connection left to Mary—well, John and Rosie—and Mary had been the only friend who’d known about her miscarriage. It felt right.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she said, as definitively as she could. She hadn’t realized he’d taken her hands again, but he had, and she gave them a squeeze. He smiled at her. “If my math is right, I’m farther along than I was before. And it feels different. That might just be in my head, of course, but it does.”

Sherlock pulled her in close, wrapping his arms around her, and held her. They stood there in their stocking feet, just holding each other, until John knocked.

“I’ll get the roast,” Sherlock said, stepping back from her, suddenly full of nervous energy.

Molly smirked at him and went to open the door for John.

“Hi,” she said, not sure what to say, exactly. John smiled at her, seeming wrong-footed as well. Rosie smiled gummily from her spot in the lounge.

“Mrs. H would like you to know that she should have an estimate on a move-in date for you by tomorrow,” John said by way of hello.

“Oh,” Sherlock said, the charred remains of his flat obviously far from his mind. “That’s good.”

“Yeah,” John said. He looked between them like he’d been expecting them to be fighting or something. Molly bit her lip, turning her attention to Rosie.

It seemed like Sherlock wanted to tell John immediately but he couldn’t decide what to say. He bounced on the balls of his feet, looked back and forth between her and John, walked around the kitchen like he couldn’t decide what needed to be brought to the dining table first.

Molly got Rosie’s highchair out of the closet. Rosie knew that meant she was about to be fed, and she squirmed happily in her father’s arms when he picked her up to bring her to the table.

“I think there’s another growth spurt coming,” John said, chuckling. “She’s been a bottomless pit.”

“Dr. Hooper has prescribed comfort food,” Sherlock said, sweeping into the dining area with the serving dishes. He’d set out trivets on the table and everything.

“You guys are—okay—then?” John asked her when Sherlock went back into the kitchen for the next load.

“I think so.” Molly nodded, bit her lip. “We talked.”

“And—”

“Here, John. Silverware,” Sherlock said, interrupting to hand John a stack of plates and utensils and the good cloth napkins. “Set the table. Be helpful.”

They had a domestic moment. Molly settled Rosie in the highchair. John set the table. Sherlock brought the rest of the food out. If John noticed that Sherlock had deliberately not brought out the wine or alcohol of any sort, he didn’t say anything.

“Smells great,” John said.

“Tastes even better,” Sherlock said.

Molly smiled, watching them dig in. John had cut a few things up very small for Rosie, buying himself time to get his own supper eaten while it was warm. She felt like she should be taking notes on parenting; that seemed like a good strategy.

“So,” Molly said when they’d all eaten their fill. Rosie was playing with her stuffies, and the adults were all sitting back from the table avoiding the idea of doing the dishes just yet.

“Helluva day,” John said.

Molly had been trying to give Sherlock openings to break the news all through dinner, but he just… hadn’t.

“So. John,” she finally said, sitting up a bit straighter and glancing over at Sherlock to give him one more chance to be the one to jump in and tell his best friend (but he didn’t, so she kept talking), “I have some news.”

“What sort of news?” he asked warily. He’d noticed the look she’d given Sherlock.

“Well.” She bit her lip and decided she might as well just say it: “I’m pregnant, John.”

John’s eyebrows shot up. His mouth opened to say something, but Sherlock spoke first:

“It’s mine.” Sherlock looked very pleased with himself.

“We’d like to keep it to ourselves for now. Please,” Molly said when it became obvious that John and Sherlock were going to try to out-wait each other to be the next to speak. “Sherlock wanted you to be the first to know. We’ll tell everybody else in a few weeks. I just want to make sure we get through the first trimester without incident.”

* * *

John had said congratulations before he left, but he mostly seemed caught up on another secret being kept from him. And he was missing Mary, she could tell. Molly was missing her, too.

“That didn’t go the way I thought it would,” Molly said when Sherlock stepped into the bedroom. He was toweling his hair and, as per usual, hadn’t bothered to so much as wrap a towel around his waist. She was too tired to even smirk at him, though.

“I wasn’t expecting him to be angry,” Sherlock said quietly.

“He’ll come around,” Molly said, because she knew he would. “I’d say he’s more frustrated than angry, after you consider the last couple days. We’ve kept more secrets from him than he deserves, you and I.”

“We didn’t set out specifically to keep it a secret from him,” Sherlock said, gesturing with the damp towel. “We didn’t even _know_ him.”

“And he’ll remember that after he’s had some more sleep.”

Sherlock scowled, but Molly just shrugged. She scooted back so that she could sit against the headboard and pull her knees up to her chest, turning her head sideways to lay it on her knees while she watched him put on his pajamas. It was very nice to see him in one piece, even if all of his movements dragged with exhaustion.

Sherlock dropped into bed, sprawling across the mattress and turning so that his forehead pressed against her hip.

“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to sleep,” he said, bringing one hand up to circle her nearer ankle, his thumb drawing gentle circles near the old scar. “There’s too much to think about.”

They sat together for a long time. At some point, he began to talk about it all. It came out in fits and starts—repressed memories, racing to solve Eurus’s riddle with John down the well, Redbeard, the coffin. She scratched lightly at his scalp as he talked; hoping it would soothe them both like it had before.

“I should probably see a therapist,” he said. He’d been quiet for so long she thought he might’ve finally given in and fallen asleep.

“What?”

“I seem to have spent my entire life pushing people away so that Eurus wouldn’t hurt them. Even though I didn’t remember Eurus.” He sighed. “I have been trying to push you away for a very long time. I have been rude, demanding. Mean. Cruel.”

“Yes. You’re an arrogant arse.” She shifted so that she could see his face better. She’d expected him to be smiling, but he looked almost sorrowful.

“And you have always been _wonderful_ ,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Ever since I met you. You’re patient. You’re brilliant. You have horrible, delightful taste in jumpers—”

She bent down and kissed him. He leaned up into it, sitting up and sliding his hand around her hip, pulling her tight against him

* * *

Molly woke in the dead of night, sitting bolt upright, adrenalin coursing through her.

“Whaddisit?” Sherlock mumbled, not quite waking up beside her.

Molly grabbed her mobile off the nightstand, pulled up her recent contacts and found Anthea.

“Yes?” Anthea answered on the third ring. She sounded just like she always did—like she was completely awake and sitting at her desk.

“Bart’s,” Molly said. “Did you check Bart’s for bombs?”

“Come again?”

“There was no way Eurus could’ve known I’d be at home when they finally decided to visit Sherrinford. It’s just as likely I’d be at work,” she said. “I know my flat didn’t have bombs in it, but my flat’s been under surveillance as long as I’ve lived here, and nobody but me would’ve called for any sort of maintenance. Bart’s is public, though. Bloody Jim Moriarty got a job in IT.”

“I will be sure it’s investigated,” Anthea said after a long pause.

Anthea hung up, and Molly flopped back on the bed. Sherlock was properly awake now and rolled over onto his side to look at her.

“They’re checking Bart’s?”

“Just to be safe,” Molly said.

“It’s a good thought,” he said. “Makes sense.”

“Apparently my hind-brain was worried about it.”

“Nightmare?”

“Something like that.”

Sherlock knew her well enough to know that she didn’t want to talk about it. Instead, he pulled her back against his chest and tucked her head under his chin. All she could smell was the warm, clean scent of him. All she could feel was his skin.

It didn’t take her nearly so long to fall back to sleep as she’d thought it would.


	23. here we are

Molly half expected Sherlock to want some space to himself in the morning. She had to check in at work—though who knew how that would go if the spooks were combing the place for bombs—and he had to collect his parents from the airport then take them to Mycroft’s office to be told their daughter wasn’t actually dead. It was going to be a bit of a day. Again.

He didn’t, though. Instead, when they’d been moving around, eating toast and getting dressed for the day, he smiled a gentle sort of smile and leaned down to kiss her.

“I quite look forward to proving that I’ll be with you as long as you’ll have me,” he murmured, moving to plant wet kisses along her jaw. “For the rest of our lives.”

“Are you proposing?” she laughed, wrapping her arms around him and pressing close.

“Yes, I suppose I am,” he said, dipping down to nip at the pulse point on her neck before returning to her lips.

“What, _really_?” she asked, pulling back just far enough so that she could look into his face properly. She’d forgotten his little comment from a lifetime ago about intending to propose after he’d returned to London until that moment.

“Did I do it wrong?” he asked, the relaxed look on his face melting into tense concern.

“No,” she said, giggling again. Giddiness and surprise chased each other through her system, making her smile but also feel a bit light-headed. “You just surprised me.”

“You’re surprised I want to be married to you?”

“A bit. I guess.”

“It’s like when we agreed to try friends with benefits,” he said, like he was explaining something so simple Lestrade should’ve picked it up. “We find each other attractive. We love each other. We enjoy sex together. We enjoy time together when we’re not having sex. My parents like you. You are somehow able to tolerate my brother. You’re pregnant with my _child_.”

“If you’ll remember,” she said, still not quite able to contain a laugh, “when you first proposed the friends with benefits thing I thought you were going to try it with Greg, not me.”

“I hope I’m a little more clear this time,” he said, eyes dark and serious as he looked down at her. “I love _you_. I want to marry _you_.”

“What happened to the high-functioning sociopath who will never have _feelings_ for me?” she asked because she couldn’t help it. Sherlock surprised her by almost smiling.

“Turns out I’m not a sociopath; it was repressed childhood trauma all along,” he said flippantly.

“Jesus, Sherlock,” she said, laughing, leaning into his chest as they wrapped their arms around each other again and thought about the mad rush of it all that brought them from where they’d been to where they were.

“I have a ring for you,” Sherlock said quietly after a moment. “It’s at Baker Street.”

“You really were planning on asking me. Like you said.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, Sherlock.”

“I was going to ask that week after we got back from my cousin’s wedding, but then being back in London wasn’t like it was before and it took me longer than I’d thought to sort out how to be Sherlock Holmes again. And then I was back into the drugs.” He sighed. He was rubbing gentle circles on her back, though she wasn’t sure he realized he was doing it. “Things just kept on coming up.”

“And now here we are,” Molly said.

“Here we are,” Sherlock echoed.

His mobile interrupted the moment, a text alert chirping to let him know their cab was waiting out front.

“You’re sure you’re okay with…?” she let the question trail off, gesturing vaguely at her midsection. “We never actually had a conversation about potential children after… that first time.”

“Yes,” he said, shrugging like it was something he’d thought was a given. “I never thought about it much until I saw those books on the bottom shelf here. And then I was just sorry I hadn’t been there for it.”

“It’s alright, Sherlock. Neither of us planned it, and you were doing important things.”

“I still wish I’d been here. Been there with you.”

“You were.” She reached for his hand and squeezed his fingers. He surprised her by lifting their joined hands to his lips so he could kiss her fingers. She smiled at him. “And you can be here this time. If you want.”

“Of course I want,” he said, hand tightening on hers. “Isn’t that part of the whole idea of marriage? We both agree to change the nappies?”

* * *

“Jesus, Sherlock,” Molly said, standing in the lounge and looking around. It was decimated. Everything was scorched, the windows were covered by sheets of plywood.

“Mrs. Hudson said she has somebody replacing the windows this afternoon. The place is still structurally sound, apparently. I’ll have to sort through all this to see if anything is salvageable,” he said, looking at the wreck of it and shaking his head. “She’s still trying to find a crew she likes to come in and refinish the floor and walls. She’s particular about her workmen these days.”

Molly nodded, thinking of the assassins posing as repairmen all those years ago, and followed him down the hall to his bedroom. The fire and destruction hadn’t reached his room, but the smoke had. Everything smelled singed, and there were black smudges at the top and bottom of the door.

Molly wanted to say something, vocalize how lucky she was feeling that Sherlock and John weren’t both _dead_ , but he tossed a little jewelry box at her, interrupting her thoughts.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“I told you I had a ring,” he said. He’d turned back to pulling things out of his wardrobe, but he threw her a look over his shoulder like he worried she’d gone mad.

“Oh.”

She opened the little box. Inside was a beautiful old ring. A large oval cut diamond surrounded by more than a dozen smaller stones. The band looked like white gold.

“It’s from the Rutherford side,” he said. “My maternal grandmother’s.”

“It’s beautiful.”

He’d been across the room putting things in a carpet bag that looked like he’d probably borrowed it from Mrs. H, but when she looked up he was right in front of her, his eyes searching her face like he expected her to be disappointed or something.

“It’s perfect,” she said. She knew there were tears in her eyes, and she did her best to blink them away because she didn’t want him thinking they were sad tears.

“Will you—Can I—?” He took the ring box from her, took the ring out of it, gestured tentatively for her hand.

“Yes, please,” she said, holding her hand out for him. He’d already had the ring sized. Of course he had. “I love you, Sherlock.”

“I love you, Molly Hooper.”

She smiled up at him, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him close.

* * *

Bart’s was a mess. No less than four of her colleagues stopped her before she’d even made it to the hall outside her office to tell her about the chaos—morgue and lab both locked down on biohazard protocols, a few of the offices (including hers) being searched. The rumors covered a wide range, from admin worrying about somebody improperly storing something contagious to a top secret alien autopsy underway.

There were folders, reports, waiting on her desk when she was allowed into her office. The spooks checking things over wanted her to look over their findings to see if she noticed anything odd or not right in what they’d found, her being most familiar with the lab and morgue and the things normally found in them. She'd intended to stop in to pick up a few things and check in with HR about the week's leave she'd requested, but it looked like she'd be lucky to get home in time for tea.

* * *

INVITED MUMMY AND DAD TO STAY IN THE SPARE ROOM, Sherlock texted around lunchtime. Then, after a pause, IS THAT OKAY?

IT’S FINE, Molly sent back. WHAT TIME WILL THEY ARRIVE? I’M STILL AT BART’S.

This was something they’d have to learn to navigate. The two halves of their relationship had always been so separate—they’d been friends, and they’d been lovers, but they’d never been a couple. They’d never tried to coordinate a family visit, or who would be home at what time to feed the cat.

JUST ABOUT TO BRING THEM TO M’S OFFICE. NO IDEA HOW LONG THIS WILL BE.

Molly could practically feel his dread coming off the text. He’d said he would be taking them out to one of their favorite brunch places before bringing them to Mycroft’s office. He’d made a joke about not wanting to worry about low blood sugar affecting their reactions.

THEY LOVE YOU. THEY’LL FORGIVE M FOR KEEPING A SECRET.

HAVEN’T EVEN DECIDED IF I’M GOING TO FORGIVE HIM, he sent back immediately. She gave him a moment, though, and he added: FINE. IT’S STILL GOING TO BE TEDIOUS.

IF YOU GET HOME FIRST, PUT SHEETS ON THE BED.

The little dots that meant he was composing a response danced for a very long time. Then they stopped and her mobile rang.

“You can’t just _spring_ that on me, Molly,” Sherlock said when she answered. He sounded… fluttery.

“What?”

“ _Home_ ,” he said. “You said when I get _home_.”

“Um. Would you rather I called it… my flat? Or something?”

“ _No_.”

“Um. Okay.” She rubbed her forehead, not sure what the issue was. “It’s—I know Baker Street is your home. I just figured you’d know what I meant—”

“Molly,” he interrupted. That ‘you’re being thick’ tone was back. “I know what you meant. It just—It hit me. You and me. A home. Together.”

Molly couldn’t keep the smile off her face. It was completely unfair that he could just be so sweetly, stupidly romantic.

“It’s another conversation we should probably have, isn’t it?” Molly asked when she managed to get her smile enough under control that she could form actual words again. “Where we’re going to live. Childcare.”

“Baker Street is no place for a child,” Sherlock said immediately. “Everybody knows the address. Clients turn up at all hours. Paparazzi.”

“Right.”

“Maybe John’s neighbors will want to sell. We could hire an au pair together.”

“You would go crazy living that far away from the city center,” she said.

“Well. Yes. But it’s a nice neighborhood.” He sounded surprisingly defensive. “Good schools. Low crime rate.”

“We should probably have a proper conversation about this when we’re both not supposed to be doing other things,” Molly said.

She should probably start of list of things they’d have to sort out, actually. “Proper Relationship Etiquette” and “Co-Parenting Agreements.” Mundane things that made her heart race just thinking about them.

“Right,” Sherlock said. “I _will_ put sheets on the bed if we get home first.”

“Thank you.”

“Takeaway for dinner? I can get Angelo to put something together. Or do you want something else? Indian? Thai?” She could practically hear his brain ticking up into overdrive. “Aren’t there things you’re not supposed to eat right now? I feel like I should know that. You still have those books, right? I should read those books.”

“Angelo’s will be great,” she said, cutting off the spiral. “How about you let me know when you’re finished with Mycroft. If you finish first, you can change the sheets and I’ll pick up the food. If I finish first, I’ll change the sheets and you can pick up the food.”

“Right. That will work.”

“Is Mycroft coming over, too?” she asked after a pause. She’d expected him to hang up; he usually hung up when the topic he’d called about had been covered. She didn’t want to stop talking to him, though.

“We’ll have to see how it goes,” he said. He sounded tired again. “It might be better to put some space between him and our parents for the evening.”

* * *

Molly made it home first. There was luggage waiting in the foyer—apparently Mycroft’s people had a copy of her key; it shouldn’t have surprised her.

She showered the morgue smells off her, put the fresh sheets on the spare bed, fed Toby. She went back and forth on what to wear—she’d met the Holmes parents more than once, spent that Christmas with them, emailed with the both of them almost regularly, but it still felt like a weirdly official sort of visit, where she’d meet his parents as his fiancée rather than his friend.

She ended up with dark jeans and the cream jumper with the little blue polka dots. She probably would’ve changed four or five more times in a first date sort of panic if John and Rosie hadn’t turned up.

“Hey!” she said. She hadn’t been sure Sherlock had invited him as well, or if he’d even turn up if he had been invited, but she was glad to see him.

“Hi, Molly,” John said, handing her Rosie so she could help get her coat off while he dealt with his own cold weather gear. “He didn’t tell you we were coming for dinner, did he?”

“I figured he’d want you to come over as well,” she said, brushing Rosie’s soft blonde curls into some sort of order with her fingers. “His parents _and_ possibly Mycroft will be here.”

“A regular Holmes family gathering,” John said. He didn’t seem angry anymore, and that was a bloody relief. She wondered if there had been an actual phone call, or if Sherlock had just been texting him all afternoon.

“Which is why I’m extra glad that you’re here, too,” Molly said. John had pulled out Rosie’s quilt, and she followed him into the lounge to set Rosie down once he had it spread out. “Sherlock knows you’ll be on his side against Mycroft, so they’re less likely to devolve into a _real_ fight.”

“Honestly, I’d kind of like to deck him, myself,” John said. He sat on the quilt next to Rosie, holding out her current favorite stuffy.

They watched Rosie for a quiet moment. She was getting to be so big, and she looked more and more like Mary every day.

“Congratulations, by the way,” John said, smiling sheepishly. “Really.”

“Thank you,” she said, and immediately had to fight down the urge to cry.

“And on the engagement, too,” he said, his smile hitching up to something closer to real amusement. “Jumping in with both feet, eh?”

“Yeah. We danced around it for long enough, I suppose.”

“Honestly, I’m still trying to wrap my mind around it.” He smirked like he was trying to make light of it, but his eyes were serious. Molly just shrugged.

“It really was just _convenient_ at the start of it,” she said. It was probably too much information, but if anybody deserved an explanation it was John Watson. “I was single, he was horrible at anything remotely like a social interaction. It just kept going on, though, and you managed to crack through that shell of his and show us all that he was capable of having a real, proper friendship with somebody. And that made it… complicated.”

John nodded thoughtfully, eyes tracking Rosie as she tested out various pieces of furniture to see which one was best for pulling herself up to her feet.

“He said there was a victim—years ago, before I met either of you—that looked like you. She made him realize it was more than just a convenience with you.”

“Really? That’s sooner than I thought.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well…” She cleared her throat. He was Sherlock’s best friend, though. If she said it to anybody, it would be him. “You can tell the difference in bed, you know? It’s different when it’s sex and when it’s making love, cliché as that sounds.”

John nodded, again thoughtful rather than put off.

“I fell for him when he was solving the murder of Martha Marie Lennox. A little girl, maybe four or five. Died horribly.” She shrugged again. “It was the first time I realized he actually cared. Cared about the victims, I mean. They weren’t just interesting puzzles.”

“He’s really good at compartmentalizing that bit away, the caring,” John said. “It’s what makes so many clients—and people in general—want to punch him.”

Rosie chose that moment to let loose an enormous fart, surprising herself so much that she lost her grip on the couch and fell back on her bum. The little girl looked up at her father with such bewilderment that the adults absolutely lost it laughing. Rosie took the laughter to mean that the noise hadn’t been harmful, so she’d returned her focus to pulling herself up onto her feet again.

“Oh my God,” John said, wiping tears from his eyes. “Those sorts of things absolutely make it worth all those nights where she refused to sleep for more than twenty minutes at a time.”

Molly was still struggling to suppress her giggles when she heard the key in the door, and then there was Sherlock. He looked… surprisingly okay. Tired.

“Hi,” Molly said, getting up. Mr. and Mrs. Holmes were right behind him.

“Oh, Molly,” Mrs. Holmes said, smiling an oddly wobbly smile. “It’s good to see you. It’s nice of you to put us up for the night.”

“Of course,” she said. “You’re welcome any time.”

Sherlock shot her a slightly panicked look, like he was expecting his parents to make a habit of popping over to hers on the weekends, but she ignored him.

“Hello,” said John, coming into the entryway with Rosie on his hip.

There were a few minutes of greetings and shuffling. Coats were hung up. Sherlock handed over two large bags full of Italian food while so he could get his coat off. Rosie was cooed over. Molly pointed out where the spare room (and their luggage) was, and the Holmes parents made polite comments about her flat.

“I’ll bring this to the kitchen,” Molly said, lifting up the bags to indicate the takeout.

“I’ll help,” Mrs. Holmes said.

“Oh, really, you don’t have to—” Molly tried, but Mrs. Holmes waved away her protests and followed her to the kitchen.

Molly wondered what the older woman would see in her home. It was warm but in a mismatched sort of way; it wasn’t comfortably cozy like the Holmes cottage. She didn’t have family photos on the walls, her bookshelves were full of dry medical references—

Her fretting was interrupted when Mrs. Holmes pulled her into a tight hug the moment she’d set the bags on the counter.

“I’m so sorry about what our daughter did to you,” Mrs. Holmes said when she withdrew, keeping Molly’s hands in her own and squeezing tight. “What she threatened to do.”

“It’s alright—well, it’s not alright, but it’s not your fault, Mrs. Holmes,” Molly said, squeezing back gently. “And no harm in the end. Not really.”

“Still. I just can’t believe…” Mrs. Holmes trailed off, making every effort not to cry.

“It is what it is,” Molly said, repeating what Sherlock had told her that John had said. And if anybody had a right to complain, it was John.

“You’re a marvel, Molly Hooper,” Mrs. Holmes said, smiling that wobbly smile again. She’d produced a tissue from somewhere and was dabbing at her eyes. “And we really do appreciate a place to stay. Myc was worried there might be other—machinations—at work, didn’t want to put us up in a hotel because that might be too predictable.”

“Well, I can probably guarantee your safety here,” Molly said, trying to make light of it. “The bomb squad checked it over and everything.”

Mrs. Holmes chuckled weakly, and Molly could practically hear Sherlock’s voice in her head telling her not to make jokes.

Molly turned to the counter and unloaded the containers of takeout. Angelo seemed to have sent along one of everything. There wouldn’t be room for it all on the table; they’d have to dish up buffet-style off the kitchen island. Was that bad form for an impromptu dinner party with one’s soon-to-be in-laws who were essentially over to be informed that they were about to be her in-laws? Did it matter?

“Oh, this is darling,” Mrs. Holmes said, drawing Molly’s attention away from the food. “Do you have a digital copy of it?”

Molly looked over Mrs. Holmes’s shoulder to see what she was focused on and had to smile: Sherlock and Rosie with their cheeks smushed together, both of them smiling for the camera. John had taken the photo just a few weeks ago.

“I should have it somewhere on my mobile,” she said. “I’ll send it to you, if you’d like.”

“Very much,” Mrs. Holmes said, smiling a sad sort of smile. It struck Molly that the older woman was thinking about grandchildren, thinking Rosie would be as close as she’d ever get to seeing Sherlock with one of his own. She caught herself with her hand drifting towards the baby bump that didn’t much exist yet, and quickly put herself to work getting plates out of the cupboard. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

Molly had been vaguely queasy most of the afternoon, but she’d been famished the moment the smell of garlic hit her. She wanted to load her plate with all the salad and pasta and bread and meatballs that would fit. Hell, she wanted to load up the serving platter they’d used for the roast yesterday and eat off that.

Sherlock was smirking at her again. That obnoxious masculine pride smirk.

And John had noticed the smirk. Of course he had. And he knew what it meant, too. It was lucky Rosie was so charming and gave him an excuse to grin like a maniac.

Very few things were said about Eurus and everything that had happened. It seemed like there was too much to say. Nobody knew where to start. Or possibly everybody was still processing things for themselves.

“Okay, well, that’s our cue,” John said. They’d been chatting at the table while Rosie played in the lounge, but the little one had drifted off to sleep.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to call you a cab?” Sherlock asked, eyebrows crinkled like they always did when somebody insisted they’d take the Tube. As if the very idea of _not_ shelling out for the cab fare was absurd.

“Nope, this is good,” John said, catching Molly’s eye and winking. “It’s a good night for a walk.”

“I’ll do dishes,” Sherlock said, as soon as the door closed behind John and Rosie, running off to hide in the kitchen. Molly just shook her head; the only time she’d ever seen that man willingly do housework was when he was avoiding something. Or someone.

“Would either of you like coffee? Brandy?” Molly asked his parents.

“No, thank you, dear, but is that cocoa you’re making?” Mrs. Holmes asked.

“Yes, would you like some?” What she really wanted was coffee, but… the caffeine. Sherlock had a pot going for himself, and it smelled divine.

They all puttered about a bit. Mr. and Mrs. Holmes complimented the hand-embroidered duvet on the guest bed (her great aunt’s, like the recipe for the roast), laughing when Toby bolted from his hiding place under the guest bed to hide upstairs. Molly tidied the living room, putting away Rosie’s quilt, then joined Sherlock in the kitchen.

“They haven’t mentioned the ring,” Molly said quietly. She glanced out into the living room, making sure his parents were still comfortably absorbed in whatever they’d found on telly. “I know they’ve both noticed it, but they haven’t said anything.”

“Probably waiting for John to leave,” Sherlock said.

“Should we, I don’t know, announce it? Or something?”

Sherlock shrugged.

They joined his parents in the living room. Molly curled up in her usual armchair with a throw blanket, and Sherlock sprawled across the other armchair. The show seemed to revolve around baking complicated cakes.

They stayed there for more than an hour, Sherlock telling them his deductions about the contestants (less about how they would fare in the competition, more about the judges’ home lives) until his mother threatened to wallop him with a throw pillow. The Holmes parents seemed to be waiting for Sherlock to announce that he was headed to John’s for the night, but when Toby slunk out from his hiding place and settled comfortably on Sherlock’s lap (where he had the best vantage to stare dubiously at the strangers on the couch), Molly could practically see the penny drop as they realized he spent a lot of time around her flat.

Sherlock probably noticed it too—because of course he would—but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he carried on with his deductions of the people on the show.

“You see this, right?” he asked the room. “It’s so _obvious_. Those two. The one with the frilly apron, and the one in blue, they’re hardly interested in the prize. They’re vying for the _amorous attentions_ of one of the camera people. You see it? Whenever it’s that view from the side?”

“Couldn’t it just be that they’ve got spouses or whoever visiting set and standing near that particular camera?” Molly asked.

“Well that’s no fun,” Sherlock said, scowling at the telly. He was absently scratching Toby’s ears exactly the way the cat preferred.

“Mol— _Sherlock_ ,” Mrs. Holmes said, suddenly sitting up, her eyes fixed on Molly’s hand even if she’d decided to address the question to her son. “Is that what I think it is?”

“I hope you don’t mind,” Sherlock said. Molly could tell he was trying to sound offhand, though he was completely failing at appearing anything but fretful. “It was just collecting dust in the deposit box.”

“What is it?” Mr. Holmes asked, looking from face to face like they’d all lost their minds.

“That’s the Rutherford ring on her finger, Siger!”

“You mean—the two of you—” Mr. Holmes stood up and hauled Sherlock out of the chair so that he could be hugged.

“Do you know, this whole evening—Well. Nevermind,” Mrs. Holmes said, standing as well and pulling Molly up out of the chair by her hands so that she could be hugged as well. “Why didn’t you _say_ anything?”

“We were looking for the right time to bring it up,” Molly said, honestly enough. Mrs. Holmes pulled back so that she could hold Molly’s face in her hands and beam at her for a moment before she and Mr. Holmes traded, Mr. Holmes pulling into a tight hug of his own while Mrs. Holmes squeezed Sherlock.

“I only asked her this morning,” Sherlock said, aiming for petulant but still sounding quite pleased with himself. “It’s not like we’ve been holding out on you.”

“Holding out on us!” Mr. Holmes said with a laugh.

“William Sherlock, you didn’t even tell us the two of you were _together_!” Mrs. Holmes said.

Molly watched Sherlock visibly decide not to tell his parents about their off-kilter attempt at a friends with benefits sort of relationship. He just shrugged, looking a bit sheepish. Molly tried her best not to laugh.


	24. not quite the traditional path

Sherlock was already up when Molly woke the next morning. He wasn't actually up, just sitting in bed next to her texting.

"John's throwing us a party tonight," he said after he'd kissed her good morning.

"A party?"

"Engagement do, I suppose," he said. 

"Alright then."

Sherlock went back to his texting. Molly got up and wrapped her dressing gown around her; she wanted the full English with extra helpings. By the time she’d finished cooking, though, it all turned her stomach. She had dry toast, Sherlock smiling with that obnoxiously male sort of pride.

His parents made their way out of the guest room—matching flannel pajamas under their dressing gowns, she noticed—and there was a bit of stumbling about for tea and appreciative noises about the hot breakfast. His mother noticed the toast and the look, she could tell, but before Mrs. Holmes could say anything, they were interrupted by a knock at the door.

“I’ll get it,” Molly said, tossing her toast onto Sherlock’s plate. “I’m finished anyway.”

Mycroft stood on the stoop, looking like he wasn’t sure he’d be welcome.

“Come in, then,” Molly said, smiling at him. She wanted to hug him, because he looked like he needed it, but she didn’t dare. “There’s breakfast. And tea.”

“Oh, Myc,” Mrs. Holmes said. Molly jumped; she hadn’t realized the other woman had followed her to the door. She called back toward the kitchen, “it’s Mycroft.”

“Go away,” Sherlock said. “It’s too early to deal with you.”

“Be nice,” Mrs. Holmes chided.

Molly closed the door and would’ve followed Mycroft through to the kitchen, but Mrs. Holmes put a hand on her wrist to stop her. She was smiling.

“How far along?” Mrs. Holmes asked, barely above a whisper.

“W-what?” Molly stuttered. Mrs. Holmes just squeezed her wrist gently, still smiling.

“Hungry enough to want to cook a hot breakfast, but then all you can stomach is dry toast?”

“We haven’t—we weren’t going to tell anybody yet,” she said, clearing her throat. She was torn between the desire to smile like an idiot and possibly cry. “It’s not the first time, you see. But, it’s just, it—um. I lost the last one. And I only realized the other day that—well— _again_. So I don’t know how far along, but I think I’ve already made it longer than the last time, but I really don’t know. And we didn’t want to… jinx it.”

“Oh, Molly, honey,” Mrs. Holmes said, pulling her in for a tight hug.

It was a proper mum’s hug, and it was exactly what Molly needed. The tears came; she wasn’t sure if they were happy or sad, but they were at the very least cathartic. Mrs. Holmes held her tight and let her cry, rubbed her back.

“Can I ask you how long the two of you have been…?” Mrs. Holmes asked after Molly had had her moment. The tears had passed as quickly as they’d come. “You’ve always seemed close, but, to be honest, I thought Sherlock might be winding us up.”

Molly laughed, and it was a snotty half-sob sort of thing. “I think he probably was. At least at first.”

“For a while then?”

“Yes,” Molly said. She kept a box of tissues on the little hall table where the dish for her keys was, and she did her best to mop up her face.

“He’s never quite been one for the traditional path, our Sherlock,” Mrs. Holmes said, but she was smiling in a fond sort of way.

“I hope it’s okay about the ring,” Molly said. “He never seems to ask before he gives me your family jewelry, does he?”

“Molly, of course it’s okay,” Mrs. Holmes said, stepping in for another hug. “More than okay. It’s wonderful. I’m _over the moon_. This has been a _hell_ of a weekend.”

That set Molly off, and Molly’s giggles made Mrs. Holmes smile, then start laughing properly as well. Sherlock came into the foyer once the madness had carried on a bit too long and a bit too loud, eyebrows raised, looking back and forth between them with concern.

“My darling boy,” Mrs. Holmes said, pulling him in for a tight hug of his own. He allowed it, even bent down a bit to accommodate it, all the while throwing a curious look towards Molly over his mother’s shoulder.

Molly put a hand low on her abdomen, the best nonverbal hint she could think of. His eyes sparked when he caught on, and he gave his mum an extra squeeze. Molly grabbed herself another tissue from the box to mop of the fresh trickle of tears.

“Ah,” Mycroft said when they reentered the kitchen. His tone said ‘ _finally_ ’ without him saying it out loud. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, like a schoolboy reciting a lesson. “Sherrinford has been emptied of residents and staff, thoroughly swept, and the residents reinstated. A temporary staff is in place while the usual staff are reviewed. It is unlikely any of them will be returned to duty; however, it is useful to get a thorough picture of what has been going on.”

“’Residents,’ Mycroft, really?” Sherlock asked, rolling his eyes. “Prisoners. They’re prisoners.”

“However you like,” Mycroft said, not quite snidely. “Now. What in the world have you done in the last few minutes that’s made Mummy cry?”

Mrs. Holmes smiled and looked at them, practically wringing her hands with excitement. Mr. Holmes reached for her, looking curiously between them all.

Sherlock looked at Molly and raised an eyebrow, leaving it to her. There didn’t seem a point in hiding it—Mrs. Holmes would tell her husband as soon as they’d left London, if not sooner, and Mycroft would know when her medical file was updated just like before.

“I think we might just be too excited to keep it to ourselves,” she said to Sherlock. For all their resolve to keep it under their hats until she’d made it out of the first trimester, they’d told every friend and family member they’d encountered since she’d told Sherlock.

And there was that idiotic masculine smile again.

“We’re engaged,” she told Mycroft, holding up her hand as if he’d somehow miss the ring otherwise. “And we’re expecting.”

She’d never seen Mycroft Holmes speechless before.

There were smiles and more hugs. Even _Mycroft_ hugged her. And he hugged Sherlock. Molly almost made a joke about being overwhelmed by his sentimentality, but it would’ve been unkind because he clearly _was_ a bit overwhelmed. He kept gripping Sherlock’s shoulder with a deer-in-the-headlights sort of look on his face.

* * *

Molly left Sherlock to see his parents off, and went to have her doctor confirm everything and give her a once over. Sherlock, not surprisingly, was waiting in the lobby when she’d finished.

“Best guess is closer to eight or nine weeks along than five or six weeks,” she told him, taking the offered arm. She wasn’t able to keep the smile off her face, so she didn’t even try. “You can come along to the next one in two weeks if you’d like. First ultrasound.”

“Molly, I will go to as many appointments with you as you’ll let me,” he said. “I will even go to those how-to-breathe classes if that’s something you want to do.”

“What’s your opinion on PDA?” she asked him.

“PDA?”

“Public displays of affection. I’d quite like to kiss you right now.”

“Suits me,” he said. She looked up at him and wasn’t at all surprised to see a smile on his face. “That said, somebody’s bound to snap a picture of that hat detective snogging a woman outside a clinic that caters almost exclusively to expectant mothers.”

“Well. If you or Mycroft feel the desire to assign me a security detail again, you’ll have to think of something other than live-in boyfriend-slash-fiancé,” she said, smiling back at him. “That position has been filled.”

Sherlock chuckled and dipped to give her a very thorough, if very quick, kiss. Then he tucked her against his side again and they continued on their way out of the clinic.

“Everything looked really good,” she told him once they’d made it to the street. Her feet had begun to turn toward the nearest Tube station, but Sherlock had hailed then a cab before she made it more than a few steps away from him. She rolled her eyes and climbed in after him. “Without going into the mucus-y details, my numbers are good and everything is looking the way it’s supposed to be looking.”

“That’s good,” Sherlock said earnestly. He’d taken her hand as soon as they’d both been settled in the cab, and he squeezed her fingers gently.

“Especially since we can’t seem to help telling everybody we know about it,” Molly said. She shifted a bit so that she could lean against his side in the seat, twining her fingers with his a bit more firmly and resting them on her thigh.

“Just family.”

“We should tell Greg and Mrs. H, too, then. They’re family too.”

“That will make it easier to work around the not toasting with champagne thing at the dinner tonight,” Sherlock said. She had her head on his shoulder so she couldn’t see his face, but she knew he was smiling.

* * *

“How fast do you think we can pull together this wedding?” Sherlock asked rather than saying ‘hello’ when they arrived at John’s. They were more than an hour early for the impromptu engagement party he’d offered to host, but John didn’t seem the least bit surprised.

“I suppose that depends on how many favors you want to owe your brother,” John said, handing Rosie over. She’d started doing her happy flail the moment she’d seen Sherlock.

“Preferably none,” Sherlock groaned. “Right Rosie? Uncle Myc is the worst.”

“Uncle Myc,” John echoed, smiling like he was going to be using that to Mycroft’s face at first opportunity.

“We might’ve talked ourselves into a bit of a panic,” Molly said, tipping her head in Sherlock’s direction so John would know that by ‘we’ she meant ‘Sherlock.’

“How’s that?” John asked.

“We already mentioned the baby, right?” Sherlock asked. He and Rosie had made it to the kitchen, where John seemed to be in the middle of assembling some sort of cheese board. He had Mary’s big charcuterie tray out and it looked like he’d been in the process of arranging sliced salami when they’d knocked.

“Yeah,” John said. “You’re going to be fantastic with that, by the way. You’ve already been fantastic with Rosie. Both of you.”

“You hear that, Rosie?” Sherlock asked, tickling their goddaughter’s belly. “We’re all _fantastic_.”

Rosie burbled happily back at him, completely unaware of his sarcasm. John rolled his eyes and took his daughter back. Sherlock stepped over to kiss Molly’s cheek— _that_ was going to take some getting used to; public or private, little displays of affection had never been part of their relationship.

John was smiling at them again.

“John’s going to be my best man,” Sherlock announced, smiling like he’d somehow turned the tables on his friend. John just kept smiling, though.

“And I’ve got plans for your stag night, mate, let me tell you.”

“I’m not having a stag night,” Sherlock said scathingly. “We’re too old for stag nights. You have a baby. _I_ have a baby. Almost.”

“No way. I’ve got _plans_.”

“Fine,” Sherlock said, trying to hide his wariness behind a scowl. “But you have to help us plan. I helped _you_ plan. And you have to do the speech. And the stupid telegrams.”

“You’re doing the full thing, then?” John asked, looking back and forth between them.

“We’ve negotiated Mummy down to Uncle Max’s country house,” Sherlock said. He sounded exhausted all over again talking about it, and it made Molly smile. (It truly had been a negotiation. Mrs. Holmes had been all for a huge wedding with all the fixings.) “Neither of us are particularly religious, so we’re going along with my parents there. Uncle Max doesn’t actually _live_ in that house, so there will be plenty of room for guests. And also we don’t have to worry about the venue being booked since he doesn’t rent it out.”

“You’ve set a date?”

“Well,” Molly said, fussing with the cheese and crackers and apple slices she’d been setting out on the charcuterie tray, “we had a sort of ballpark idea in mind, but I just had a checkup this afternoon. I’m a bit farther along than I thought.”

“Everybody’s going to wonder what’s the rush,” John said, smiling. 

“Oh, shut up,” Molly said, tossing a slice of cheese at him. (He caught it and ate it.) “Mary was pregnant at your wedding, too.”


	25. epilogue

~~~~“He’s called it ‘ _Human After All_ ,’” Molly said. They were on their honeymoon, the last day of three weeks on an island in the Mediterranean. It was technically part of Greece.

“Should I be insulted?” Sherlock asked. He’d just stepped out of the shower and hadn’t bothered to so much as wrap a towel around his waist. It made Molly smile, though she was too shagged out to grab him and show him how much she appreciated the view.

“’Despite my friend’s insistence that love is human error, it would seem that he is human after all,’” Molly read. “I don’t think that’s _deliberately_ insulting, at least.”

Sherlock hummed, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, and lay down on the bed next to her. He tucked himself against her side, still-wet hair tickling the side of her breast as he arranged himself to best caress the growing baby bump.

A month ago, it had been a bump. Easily hidden by one of the roomy jumpers she preferred. There was no disguising it for what it was, now. She was visibly pregnant. Her breasts were larger, not that anybody but her and Sherlock would really notice. She felt, in turns, like some sort of maternal goddess and like some sort of goblin with too-tight skin.

“He says the wedding was lovely, that he met more Holmes cousins than he ever thought could possibly exist, and that it turns out you are a very good dancer,” Molly said, summarizing John’s blog post for him. The hand not holding her mobile had made its way to his head, fingers teasing his curls. She really hoped their baby inherited his curls. “And he kept my name out of it, bless him.”

“Mycroft may have threatened him with prison time on that front,” Sherlock said.

“What?”

“I’m afraid we’re embarking into new territory with my brother. He isn’t especially good at showing affection, and he truly does like you.” She could hear the smile in his voice, but she wasn’t sure if it was the prospect of Mycroft feeling out of his element or if he was just generally happy. “And therefore he’s going to do everything shy of assigning you an actual security detail. Again. Welcome to my world.”

“I’d be annoyed at that if it didn’t mean he’ll be looking out for the baby, too,” Molly said. Then she moved her mobile so he’d be able to see the screen. “John posted a picture from the wedding, too.”

It wasn’t one of the posed shots from the official photographer (who had been vetted a hundred times over and thoroughly searched for weapons or anything vaguely weapon-like before being allowed to take any photos). Actually, it looked like John had taken it on his mobile.

It was from when they’d stepped away from the dancing for a few minutes, standing together on the terrace watching the sunset give over to dusk. Sherlock had been holding her close, his arm slung low around her waist. She’d been resting her head on his shoulder, the pearls in her hair (a gift from his mother) gleaming. It was a very nice shot of them, and, conveniently, her face wasn’t in the shot so Mycroft wouldn’t be throwing John in prison.

“Speaking of Mycroft and his fun new security protocols for me,” Molly said, tossing her mobile aside, “we should probably start making actual plans for how this is going to work.”

“We’re on holiday. Plans are for London,” he groused.

“Sherlock. I am rapidly approaching the halfway point in this pregnancy, and we haven’t even decided where we’re going to live, let alone bought anything for a nursery.”

Sherlock groaned dramatically, but he sat up and turned to face her. After a moment, he picked the sheet up from where it had fallen on the floor after their morning sport in bed, and wrapped it around himself while he thought.

“Baker Street is bigger, but it’s a known address and has a history of being blown up,” he said. “Your flat is comfortable, and already baby-proofed for Rosie.”

“I was thinking I should sell my flat so we can find someplace with more room.”

“You want to move to the suburbs?”

“Well, there’s a reason John moved to the suburbs,” Molly said. “More cost-effective, particularly if you need a few extra bedrooms for babies and visiting family.”

“I’m not sure how you could’ve missed it, but money really isn’t an issue, Molly.”

“Well, fine then, how about being closer to John and Rosie? We’ve already shared some of the child-minding, and I can only imagine that’s going to be happening more often when the number of children in the picture grows.” She really didn’t want to talk up the money aspect of it all at the moment—there was a whole sheaf of paperwork from banks waiting for her when they got back to London; she’d been added to the Holmes accounts and it was more than a little bit intimidating. She’d done well for herself, but she’d spent her entire adult life carefully managing her money.

“I’ll work out of Baker Street, and you can use the bedroom there if you have an early shift at Bart’s. We can turn John’s old bedroom into a nursery for when the children are around,” he said thoughtfully. “Most of the time we can commute, though. We’ll find someplace outside of London. Someplace with a garden. I could raise bees.”

“You want to raise bees?”

“Yes, of course. Don’t you? Bees are fascinating.”

* * *

The return to London came too soon and not nearly soon enough. Molly missed Mary all over again, thinking of all the complaining they could’ve shared about being pregnant on their honeymoons.

They went directly from the airport to Baker Street. They probably would’ve had the cab wait for them to take them along to her flat after they’d picked up Sherlock’s mail, but the cabbie had prattled on for the duration of the drive, talking about how happy and sunkissed they looked, how they’d had the right idea taking a last holiday as a couple because things would change when their little one was born, etc.

“That was ridiculous,” Sherlock said, holding the door open so she could go ahead of him into the foyer.

“He was quite talkative, yes,” Molly said.

“Ridiculous,” Sherlock muttered again.

They left their luggage in the foyer and went up to B. It was cleaner than she’d ever seen it—dusted and vacuumed, no active cases speared to the mantel with the knife, no ongoing experiments in the kitchen.

“Mrs. Hudson meddled while we were away,” Sherlock said, eyes scanning the room.

“No, she cleaned,” Molly corrected. Mrs. Hudson had left the mail in a tidy stack on the desk, too.

“Anything interesting?” Sherlock asked, headed down the hall to collect a few more things from his bedroom. He'd decided to bring his things over to her flat one duffel of clothes and trinkets at a time. The big debate was where he’d keep his violin, at Baker Street for thinking between clients or her flat for thinking in the evenings.

“Quite a bit of junk mail. Note from Mycroft. A few that look like cards from people who weren’t at the wedding.”

“What’s Mycroft sending a note for?”

“I’ll open it and see.” She set the rest aside and tore open the envelope from Mycroft (sent from his official British Government stationary, too). “Oh, he’s put me in charge of your trust fund. _Jesus, Sherlock, do you know how much money he’s got just sitting in your trust fund_?”

“No,” Sherlock said, sounding bored. He was interested enough that he left off his packing and came back into the lounge to have a look, though. “My parents signed it over to him when I was at uni. I couldn’t be trusted, so they named him executor. I've made a point to never ask for access to the funds.”

“Yes, well, you do have a nasty habit of deciding cocaine is a good idea,” Molly said, still boggling a little bit. He could buy _a lot_ of cocaine with full access to that account.

“Maybe a house in the country is a better idea,” he said. “And bee hives.”

“And nappies. And a crib. And a changing table. Baby clothes. _Maternity_ clothes.” She’d ended up buying a sundress while they were away; the baby was having a growth spurt, and none of her trousers had fit by the time they’d headed for the airport. (The dress was red and breezy and she loved it, but it was quite a bit cooler in London than it had been in Greece; she needed proper maternity clothes.)

“Really, we can buy all that and the house with our own money. Let it sit in the trust; the baby can have it when we die.”

“Can we get through the birth before we make plans for when we’re dead? Please?”

* * *

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it. It hasn't been beta'd or Brit-picked, so feel free to point out errors so I can go back and fix them. (Also, tags? I am not great at tags. Are there tags I should add?)  
> I have a few ideas for little oneshot offshoots of this story that will probably (eventually) end up posted, so I suppose if you have any prompts for more they'd be welcome.  
> Thanks for reading!


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